


Reckless

by AliceBB



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, California, Drama, Drama & Romance, F/F, Los Angeles, Past Violence, Romance, girl meets girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-11-13
Packaged: 2021-01-06 00:42:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 44,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21217730
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AliceBB/pseuds/AliceBB
Summary: Alternate Universe -- Fear the Walking DeadWhat if Alicia had met Althea before the end of everything?Alicia is a self assured, confident, young university student when a chance meeting in a coffee shop with Al the cute, flirty, somewhat older reporter leaves her excited for a possible romance beyond what she's experienced before. Will Al's love em and leave em bad reputation leave Alicia wondering what she was thinking, or will Alicia's caring and kind nature bring Al out of her self-imposed, never more than one date, isolation?Takes place in the present day pre-apocalypse. This is a bit different than my usual plot heavy writing but still lots of angst and characters with issues. You might notice some of the other characters (sort of, maybe??) popping up here and there. Oh, I spell Alicia's last name with an E just cause.Story is COMPLETE!





	1. Meeting

The coffee shop was busy and Alicia was annoyed.

Every time the door swung open and the little bells jingled a warning, Alicia would look up from her phone and each time she would be disappointed. More people were entering than leaving and the place was filling up. Behind her and to her left, a woman at the closest table was getting louder. Alicia had been listening on and off – she could hardly not listen – catching words here and there that made her think whoever the first woman was, the one doing most of the talking, she was very earnest.

Just as Alicia’s phone chimed with an incoming text, the conversation at the next table reached a breaking point. “This isn’t what I expected!” the Earnest Woman stood up suddenly her chair scrapping loudly across the floor. “I thought you were here to support the cause and interview me in a sympathetic light.”

Alicia feigned attention to her phone though she was listening with her full attention now. She smiled to herself when she imagined the words _the cause_ in capital letters. Her thumb had tapped the text icon when the second woman at the table, and the person closest to Alicia, replied in a softer voice. “I’m a reporter, sweetheart. It’s my job to be impartial.”

_Sorry, can’t make it today. Maybe tomorrow?_

Alicia huffed with irritation. She had been waiting a half an hour for her friend to show and only now did she text to say she wasn’t coming? When, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Earnest Woman plant her hands on her hips her stance radiating an intense irritation, Alicia could commiserate.

“I have better things to do then sit here and waste my time!” Earnest Woman stalked toward the door, wrenched it open making the little bells clank and rattle alarmingly, and with a swirl of silk scarf trailing behind her, made her dramatic exit.

Alicia, Reporter Woman and several others watched her go. While texting a reply to her friend, Alicia looked side long at the woman still seated at the table beside her.

“Calling her sweetheart might have been a bit harsh,” Alicia gave a slight shrug of her shoulders to go with the remark.

“Maybe,” the woman answered and Alicia watched as she picked up her phone and flicked her thumb across the screen as she scrolled through messages. “Maybe she’s always a bit bitchy when she has too much caffeine.”

Alicia gave a little snort of a laugh as she hit send on her text. Draining the last of her latte she set the cup aside and dabbed at the muffin crumbs left on her plate. People were standing around now as all the tables were full. Just as she was about to get up, Alicia heard the woman behind her speak again.

“Stan. What the hell is a_ stan_?”

“Are you talking about a person?” Alicia turned in her chair and her knee contacted the other woman. Holding her phone in front of her the other woman looked up and met Alicia’s eyes. She was older than Alicia though her age wasn’t readily apparent. Thirty perhaps? Her light brown hair hung in long bangs partly obscuring the right side of her face – the side closest to Alicia – giving her a carefree sort of youthful vibe. When she smoothed the hair back from her face with her free hand tucking a few strands behind her ear, Alicia could see her hazel eyes held a playful glint. A look Alicia found rather appealing.

“Yes, it’s person,” the reporter woman turned her full attention on Alicia. Her face was round and there was a dimple between her small nose and perfectly shaped lips. She had a strong jawline and smooth, near flawless skin that Alicia thought had never seen a beauty product short of a bit of moisturizer after a sunburn. She could’ve been a model with that face, Alicia thought. Yet she did nothing to make herself look attractive in the currently acceptable fashion sense.

Black cargo pants worn a tad too loose and tucked haphazardly into well-worn boots with prominent buckles, a red long-sleeved T-shirt with stripes across her flat chest, she might have been called pretty were she not so casually androgynous.

“Stalker fan,” Alicia said. “Stan for short. You have a stan?”

The woman fixed Alicia with a penetrating gaze that Alicia found both unnerving and warming at the same time.

“Seems I do,” the woman stood up her attention shifting to the counter of the coffee shop then back to Alicia. She was taller than Alicia by a good few inches, thin and angular. “Hey, will you watch my stuff?” A quick gesture indicated a big green canvas bag under the table and her cell phone next to an empty mug on the table.

“Sure,” Alicia nodded. A couple were looking at her table hopefully so Alicia got up to let them know they could have it. She was thinking it would only take a minute for the woman to return and she could be on her way when the woman paused and looked back at her.

“Do you want a coffee?”

“Sure,” Alicia heard herself say again all to quickly and, perhaps, too hopefully.

“How do you take it?” There was no mistaking the playful flirty look the woman was giving her.

“Ah,” Alicia swallowed. This wasn’t the first time someone of the same gender had looked at her in a way that could be considered flirtatious; but it was the first time she found herself responding positively because a part of her found the woman attractive. A big part of her.

“Just some cream is fine,” Alicia felt her face flush with heat and was happy when the woman turned away toward the counter though she saw her mouth twitch with the ghost of a smile as she did so.

Alicia moved to the other side of the table taking the seat recently abandoned by Earnest Woman. Reaching out, she pulled the other woman’s phone closer so she wouldn’t have to try to explain if someone snatched it and made a run for the door. The screen lit with a message that Alicia tried to both look at and not look at.

Looking away her eyes found the other woman at the counter and she watched as the barista placed two full mugs down for the woman. When their fingers brushed each other, the barista smiled and blushed. Returning to the table, the reporter woman held a mug out to Alicia and, when Alicia took it, their fingers intersected in the same way as she had with the barista.

“I can see why you have a stan,” Alicia said under her breath taking a sip of hot coffee.

“Sorry?” the woman cocked her head at Alicia hair falling across her forehead.

“Your phone,” Alicia gestured to the table where the cell phone had lit up again. “You have a message.”

For a long moment the woman did nothing just watched as Alicia sipped her coffee.

“Is it alright…?”

The long pause at the end of the sentence was open for Alicia to insert her name so, setting down her mug, she did so.

“Alicia. Alicia Clarke. And the coffee is fine, thank you.”

“OK, good. Alicia, Alicia Clarke.” Smoothing her hair out of her eyes again, the woman smiled broadly. “Should I be afraid?”

“Huh? Of me?” Alicia felt her face flush again.

“No, not you,” the woman took a long drink of coffee and placed her mug on the table before elaborating. “Of stan. Should I be afraid?”

“That depends…?” Alicia tagged the lilt of a question on the end of the statement giving the other woman space to insert her name much as she had done with Alicia.

“Althea. Call me Al.”

“OK, Al." Alicia tried on the name and found it a good fit with Al’s boyish good looks. “How do you know you have a stan when you didn’t know what the term meant?”

Al inclined her head in acknowledgement. “A friend of mine from where I used to work has been forwarding the messages. This time she said _‘here’s the latest from your stan.’_”

“OK. Then it depends,” Alicia said. With her index finger she traced circles around the rim of her mug. “It depends on the tone of the messages. What’s stan saying to you?” Alicia looked up from her mug and met Al’s eyes. She knew she was probably pushing the bounds of their casual acquaintance but she was curious; very curious.

“Just stuff. Personal stuff,” Al paused and Alicia felt she was gauging how much to say. “Stuff like what she wants to do to me.” Al met Alicia’s gaze open and unwavering. Almost challenging, Alicia thought.

“OK, so does _things she wants to do to you_ involve lopping off body parts,” Alicia began meeting Al’s challenging look head on, “and leaving a bloody mess on the floor for CSI, or maybe the things your stan wants to do to you are more along the lines of tender kisses in delicate places? No blood, no mess, no CSI.”

For a moment Alicia wondered if some alien being had just invaded her mind and taken over forcing her to say the words that now hung in the air between them. It was so not like her and she fully expected Al to toss coffee in her face and storm off out the door in an equally dramatic way as Earnest Woman had minutes earlier.

She had opened her mouth to apologize when Al’s face was split by a wide grin and she sat back laughing. “Well look at you crack wise!” Al took a sip of coffee still grinning. “It’s the latter. Only less tender and far more graphic with the delicate places.”

Alicia worked very hard to play it cool. Her words out of nowhere, as she was beginning to think of them, had not caused the negative effect she thought they might. In fact, it seemed quite the opposite. Al was now regarding her with open curiosity mingled with what might be a bit of respect.

“So did this stan just plop down into your life out of nowhere? Do you even know her?” Alicia watched Al’s grin shift into something more serious as she thought this through.

“It’s possible it’s someone I used to work with at my last job. Someone in the background at the station that I didn’t know very well.”

“Someone obsessed with you,” Alicia said and watched Al closely for her reaction.

“Yeah, I guess so,” Al said dismissively. “I’ll be sure to avoid dark alleys for from now on.”

Instantly Alicia regretted the serious turn the conversation had taken and how that cute grin was now gone from Al’s face. And now it looked like Al was getting ready to leave and Alicia thought she was going to regret it terribly if this cute, flirty woman with the amazing smile walked out the door without… without what?

“Hey,” Alicia said as Al slipped her phone into an inside pocket of her jacket that hung on the back of her chair and reached down to retrieve her canvas bag. “Why don’t I give you my number, you know, in case you have any more acronyms, or whatever, that you can’t figure out.”

Alicia held her breath and a part of her wondered why so much was riding on what this person, obviously older than her, obviously beyond her usual group of friends and very obviously female, would say, mattered so much. When Al grinned again her gaze shifting into something very obviously flirtatious again, Alicia felt heat rush to her cheeks and she fought to keep her face neutral.

“OK, Alicia. Alicia Clarke.”

When Al made no move to pull her phone from her pocket, Alicia smiled in what she hoped was her most patient and endearing way and flicked her fingers. “Give it up, Al”

Al grinned even more broadly her eyes darkening into something very playful and, to Alicia’s unguarded mind, something extremely sexy. “Right here, right now?” Al said her voice low. “We haven’t even had our first date.”

Alicia ran a hand through her hair and sat back propping one elbow on her chair back. Holding out her other hand she rolled her eyes at the other woman. “Maybe it’s different with girls,” Alicia said her voice steady and just a little cool, “I wouldn’t know… yet, but most dates I’ve been on have started with one of us giving the other a phone number.”

Her eyes never leaving Alicia and her smile still in place, Al pulled her phone from her pocket and held it out to Alicia. Taking the phone, Alicia was relieved to see it was a Samsung like hers only the newest model. She pushed the power button and swiped past a lock screen scene of desert and mountains. Al’s home screen was an image of a tropical beach with a bent palm tree overhanging an empty lounge chair.

Alicia moved quickly to contacts and, flicking her eyes once over the phone at Al who sat watching her neither impatient or eager, added in her name and number. She double checked to make sure the new entry had been saved before handing the phone back.

“Thanks for the coffee.”

Al stood and slipped her arms into her black jacket, gathered her canvas bag. “Thanks for the help with my stan,” Al looked down at her phone then back up at Alicia. “I’ll let you know if I think of anything else, Alicia.” With a smile that left Alicia feeling hopeful this wouldn’t be their first and last meeting, Al slipped out the door and, with a tinkle of bells, was gone.

Alicia let out a long breath she didn’t realize she was holding and looked around the coffee shop. People were talking, drinking and eating totally oblivious to her. No one turned to gape at her and say in shock and wonder _‘did you just give your number to a girl?!’_

_I did,_ Alicia thought, _and I really hope she calls cause that smile is killer. _

Looking at her phone, Alicia saw she had ten minutes until the bus that would take her on the fastest most direct route home pulled up at the stop just outside the door to the coffee shop. She had time for a quick restroom stop before walking out to the curb. The bus wasn’t in sight yet, just a motorcycle pulling out of the coffee shop parking area.

Alicia didn’t look up from her phone until the motorcycle came to a rumbling stop in front of her. Al, her eyes hidden behind aviator shades, grinned at her.

“Maybe you should put down the phone once in a while. You never know when a cute chick on a bike might smile at you.”

With a quick look over her shoulder and a twist of the throttle, Al shot off down the street.

_Dayam…_

**The next day**

Alicia pushed the book cart down an aisle between two stacks of books. The university library was quiet. In fact, it was always quiet and Alicia reveled in the near silence. There was the occasional scuff of a chair leg or a thump of a dropped book; nothing to break her concentration. A part of her mind, the nearly automated part, pushed her cart up and down the aisles as she re-shelved books here and there. The other part of her mind, the creative, nonlinear part was prone to daydreams. Most of these were short and speculative. Like right now she was thinking about what she would say if her phone rang and it was reporter Al.

First, the logical part of her mind told her that she would be in trouble if anyone heard her talking on her phone in the library. To counter this, she had her phone on vibrate and, as she worked replacing books and other material, she kept an eye on who was around, especially other staff. At the back corner of this section of the library the walls were floor to ceiling windows. Alicia often paused here to look at the view.

As she came out of the last aisle into an empty corner, she looked up and was startled by her own reflection in the windows. Hands on the handle of the book cart, eyes straight ahead, she looked both present and far away. Taking a quick look over her shoulder to verify she was alone, Alicia stepped out from behind the cart and stood, back straight and posture rigid, in front of her reflection.

She wasn’t tall; that was often the first thing she thought when she saw herself – all of herself – in a mirror. No more than five foot five or six, maybe a couple of inches more when she wore heels. Thin legs accentuated by the skinny jeans she preferred though right now she wore conservative black dress pants to go with the white long sleeve blouse that made up her unofficial work outfit. Around her neck, on a lanyard with the university logo, hung her ID pass. Striking a rather prim pose and pursing her lips she thought if she added a pair of glasses, she would make the perfect stereotypical librarian.

Stepping closer to the window she scrutinized herself. Straight brownish hair with golden blonde highlights – growing out now she noticed, and frowned at herself – usually hung below her shoulders though for work she gathered her hair into a ponytail or, like today, secured it with a broad clip at the back of her neck. 

Her face was classically pretty; smooth unblemished skin that required no makeup to look good, full, well-shaped lips, longish straight nose and eyes that could be either brown, green or grayish depending on the light, were accentuated by naturally long lashes and strong brows that she left as they were. A chin dimple sometimes more prominent then other times set off a smooth jaw in an oval, sculpted face.

Pretty, but not pretentious, her mother often said. When she smiled, she put people at ease, let them know she wasn’t too self-absorbed to listen and care. That part of her personality was natural not learned, her mother told her, and something she was proud of her daughter for. And mothers were always right, weren’t they?

Staring at herself she began to wonder how her mother would react if she brought Al home for dinner. No, maybe not home. Mixed up, messed up, home where she hadn’t lived for a couple of years since leaving for university. Maybe a nice outdoor restaurant somewhere and Al would drive up on her motorcycle. Shaking her head and rolling her eyes at herself she put a stop to that line of thought. Her mother, Alicia knew all too well, would take one look at Al and begin to interrogate her. Single mothers were like that, she had come to realize as she grew older. Protective and sometimes downright nosy. Even if she didn’t herself, her brother Nick had given their mother ample reason to be that way and more.

Sighing, she turned back to the nearly empty book cart as her phone vibrated in her front pants pocket. Fumbling to get it out quickly, she dropped it and it bounced off her toe and in between books on the lowest shelf. Finally retrieving it, her happy anticipation was broken when she saw the notification was for a text from her mother.

_Haven’t talked to you for a couple of days. Everything OK? Are you coming home for supper over the weekend?_

Alicia took a look around and slipped behind the nearest stack.

_I talked to you the day before yesterday. I’m fine. I don’t know about this w/e. Might be doing something with friends._

When texting her mother, she always kept abbreviations and slang to a minimum. Not that her mother wouldn’t understand – she worked at a high school – her mother just expected Alicia to maintain a certain decorum. No swearing or bad grammar at home or on the phone.

There was a long pause so Alicia slipped her phone back in her pocket and turned her book cart to head up the next aisle. After a few minutes her phone vibrated again. Turning her back to a couple sitting at a desk nearby, Alicia looked at the text.

_OK LMK. I can always come pick you up so you don’t have to take the bus. BTW I put some $$ in your account. Buy food! Not clothes or hair stuff. You’re too thin. TTY later or whatever._

Alicia smiled to herself as she sent a quick reply – all smiley faces – and pocketed her phone. Maybe her mother wasn’t so bad at texting after all. Now if she could only tell the difference between side-eye emoji and eye-rolling emoji.

**Later that evening**

Alicia lay on her bed in her room in the house she shared with four or five other female students depending on who was here at the time and not away at their family home or off somewhere else. She never could keep up with all the comings and goings. Housing near the university campus was too expensive for anything other than this sort of arrangement. The house was big, reasonably modernly renovated so that each room, shared by two students, had their own bathroom. The kitchen and common areas were spacious and the backyard had a nice patio with a BBQ grill and vegetables and flowers planted by someone no one who currently lived there could name.

The only drawback was that it was often noisy. So, when someone downstairs began yelling about missing apples or something, Alicia went looking for her headphones. After she located them on her bureau under a pile of clean laundry, she returned to her bed to see her phone’s notification light flashing. Flopping back onto the bed she clicked the power button and flipped past the lock screen. The message was a text and she frowned thinking it was probably her mother again. But this time it wasn’t.

_Hey, Alicia, Alicia Clarke. Remember me?_

Alicia’s fingers fumbled at the keyboard when she recognized the number the text had come from.

_Yeah reporter girl_… that didn’t seem right so she backspaced it out and typed in _motorcycle girl_. But that still didn’t seem right so, thinking Al might be losing interest waiting for her reply, she keyed in the next thing she came up with.

_Yeah, you’re the girl with the cute smile from the coffee shop yesterday, right?_

Grimacing at her own forwardness, Alicia waited for a response.

_I could be. Depends on how many cute girls you give your number to._ 😊 😊

_Probably dozens. Well, make that a few. Only one that I really want to hear from._

After she hit send, Alicia felt her face flush with embarrassment. Holding her phone face down on her chest she held her breath. After a moment, longer than the time in between the previous messages, her phone chimed an incoming text.

_I guess I was hoping you would say something like that. I’m usually not this brash ... no wait that’s a lie I am just don’t tell anyone…_😉 _I’d really like to see you again. If you want to, that is._

Alicia felt her heart begin to beat a little faster and her hands were even more unsteady when she typed out her reply. She kept it simple.

_I’d like that too._

_Cool. Is tomorrow night too short notice?_

_No that works. _

_OK Good. There’s this thing. It’s kind of like an open mike music thing. Sometimes people do poetry or spoken word stuff or whatever it’s called now. After that there’s a really good band playing…_

Alicia waited sensing Al wasn’t finished.

_It’s a good time and the club is nice. I was thinking we could have dinner together before at this little Mexican place I like. It’s just down the block from the club. You OK with tacos etc?_

_Yeah, sure. I love tacos_ 😊

_OK it’s a date then. I’ll send you the address. _

After another minute a text arrived that when she clicked on it the map application opened and she could see the little storefront restaurant was not really all that far. Alicia was thinking through bus routes when her phone chimed again.

_Is this the first date you’ve been on with a girl?_

Alicia laid her phone on her chest again and thought about her reply. She could be flippant or she could be serious. Deciding on a combination of both, she sent…

_Yes, it is. You too?_

_Ha ha ha! Nope, not nearly. I like you Alicia, Alicia Clarke. You have a killer sense of humor! _

Alicia imagined Al’s big grin when she read this.

_I try._ 😊 😉

_I try too. Sometimes it works out_ 😉 _So see you tomorrow around 6?_

_OK, good. _

Alicia put her phone down smiling. After a moment she thought of something. Something important, or at least important to her.

_Hey, wait! Stupid question but seeing as I’m a newbie girl and all… what’s appropriate to wear to this kinda thing? _

After she hit send Alicia rolled her eyes. _Stupid, stupid_, she castigated herself. But the problem with not asking would be like wearing a formal dress to a football game awkward.

The response took long enough that Alicia thought Al might have put her phone away in a deep pocket and not noticed her message.

_Casual. Whatever you are comfortable in. Especially for dancing. BTW it’s going to be all women there._

_Dancing with women sounds like a blast. I can’t wait!_

_Me neither. _

As that seemed to end things on a positive note, Alicia sent a single smiley in return. Slipping on her earphones, she chose a playlist on her phone and closed her eyes. She could feel herself smiling but didn’t care.

As the music started – a song by P!nk – she tried to temper the excitement she was feeling. Just admitting she was excited was a big step. But there was no mistaking the feelings going on in her mind and body. A few years ago, she might have found thoughts like this about someone of the same gender embarrassing. Not now. She knew herself so much better now; was so much more comfortable within her own body and mind.

And there was just something about Al that, well pushed all her buttons. Her relaxed androgyny, cool self-confidence, incredible smile, teasing playful eyes … _yeah_, Alicia thought, _she’s checking all the boxes and the best thing is she’s actually interested in me! Not that I should say it like that; I’m not so bad after all! _

The music in her headphones muted as the notification for a new email sounded. Alicia clicked on her email and noticed the new message was received on one of her less used accounts; one she used for things on the Internet she wanted to stay more or less anonymous.

When she opened the message, she saw it came from a fanfiction archive. One of her favourite authors had published a new story. Clicking on the link took her to the description of the story and she grinned to herself. The story was for one of her fave TV shows and for a pairing she totally thought should be together. That it was two female characters was all the better. Still smiling, she began to read.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alicia being the good girl that she is always leaves comments on stories she likes as well as kudos. She knows fanfic writers need proper feeding. :-)


	2. First Date

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You can kiss me if you want. That would be nice.”

**Early Evening the Next Day**

_I’m walking down the street. _

Alicia hit send on the text and looked up. She was about a half block away from the restaurant. Looking sideways at herself in the window of a flower shop she gave her loose hair a flip and her shirt a tug on the knot that held the tails together in the front. She had tried on several outfits before settling on a combination of her own clothes and a few things she had raided from Nick’s closet before moving out of her family’s home.

Skinny jeans – a newer pair with premade rips in the knees – a loose white shirt, the kind with big pockets and made of a very nice linen, over one of Nick’s undershirts this one in a light grey, a narrow belt with a gold circular buckle and, on her feet, an old pair of Nick’s black Converse high tops. She thought she looked good. Feminine with a bit of androgyny to make things interesting. The only makeup she wore was around her eyes. Topping things off was another borrow from Nick: just a dab of Karl Lagerfeld cologne behind each ear. Someone, perhaps her date, would have to get close to notice it.

_So you are. I see you._

Alicia looked up from her phone. She was much closer to the restaurant now and she could see someone leaning against the wall. One foot propped behind her against the brick below the window, Al turned her head and smiled.

Alicia stopped in front of her and returned the smile with one of her own. For a moment they stared at each other until Alicia broke the spell by pushing her hair back from her forehead. Even though it was hardly possible, Al’s smile got even bigger and Alicia saw her swallow. Alicia looked over Al’s shoulder and into the storefront behind her. All she could see was a long takeout counter and a couple of old Formica tables under the window and to one side.

Al followed her gaze. “Not here,” she said. “Around back.” Pushing off the wall, Al extended her hand. Alicia hesitated only a second or two before placing her palm against Al’s. Her grip firm and warm, Al led Alicia a few steps to an alleyway on the left. Trailing a half step behind the other woman down the narrow passage between the cinder block side of the restaurant and the six-foot wall of the parking lot on the other side, Alicia took in Al’s appearance.

Tonight, she wore slim fit black pants with tight cuffs over shiny Doc Marten boots and a black T-shirt. Alicia could make out faded tour dates for Linkin Park on the back of the well-worn T-shirt. Simple but extremely effective, Alicia thought.

At the end of the alley was a low gate that opened into an intimate courtyard. Surrounded on three sides by wooden fencing barely seen through the ferns and climbing clematis. The blue, purple and pink flowers were accented by fairy lights in purple and a golden yellow. Looking closer Alicia could see the purple lights were shaped like dragon flies and the golden ones like little stars. Small French café style tables were scattered about the flagstones and the area was about half full of mainly couples of mixed ages and genders. As if cued by their arrival, a small band tucked against the back of the building started up. The female singer had a clear emotive voice that soared over the courtyard. She was playing her acoustic guitar with a comfortable carefree skill that Alicia wished she had been able to learn back when she took lessons as a young teen. When the singer came to the chorus of the lively song, an acoustic bass player, an older man on accordion, and drummer joined in. Several couples closest to the low stage moved out onto the small dance floor and began to move with the music in a dance step that reminded Alicia of a two-step. 

Al squeezed her hand and bumped their shoulders together. “How’s your Spanish?” she asked leaning close to Alicia’s ear.

“Mi español es excelente, chica. ¿Cómo esta el tuyo?”

Al grinned and laughed. Catching the eye of young woman in a white shirt and black skirt, she led Alicia across the courtyard to a table near the back. When they reached the table, the young woman smiled at Al, and taking her free hand kissed her on both cheeks.

Still holding Alicia’s hand, Al introduced Alicia in Spanish. The woman, whose name was Ofelia, leaned close to kiss Alicia on her cheek.

“Bienvenida, Alicia ¿puedo traerte algo de beber? ¿Cerveza?” Ofelia said once Alicia and Al were seated.

“Gracias. Tendré un Tecate, por favor,” Alicia replied.

Ofelia looked at Al. “Modelo, for you, Al?” Al smiled and nodded immediately turning her attention back to Alicia.

“You take Spanish in school?”

“Everyone does,” Alicia replied casually. “You?”

“I’m from Santa Fe, New Mexico,” Al answered. “My parents were multilingual so they made sure my brother and I learned the other local language.”

Ofelia returned with their beer and a bowl of tortilla chips with salsa and queso on the side. When she lingered next to the table, Al leaned toward Alicia. “Hey, I’m starved. Do you mind if I order?”

When Alicia nodded her assent, Al requested several different tacos with sides of rice and beans.

“I’ll have the same,” Alicia handed the menu back to Ofelia without looking at it.

“Lovely choices,” Ofelia said in English to Alicia then added, “your sweetheart doesn’t like guac or cilantro. You ok with those?”

“Of course,” Alicia smiled. Ofelia touched Al’s shoulder lightly and with a smile to Alicia headed off to the kitchen at the back of the building next to the stage. “Salud,” Alicia clinked her beer bottle with Al’s. “You don’t like guacamole? You might have your Spanish license revoked.”

“I have my quirks,” Al grinned at Alicia and dipped her chin in a sexy way that caused Alicia to draw in a breath. Shifting her chair to the back of the table so both she and Alicia had a better view of the stage, Al sipped her beer. “She’s great, don’t ya think?” Al said referring to the singer.

That they were now close enough to talk easily and touch too if they wanted to, a fact that was not lost on Alicia. “Amazing, is a better word.” Alicia dipped a chip in salsa and leaned forward so she didn’t spill any on her white shirt. “This place is amazing too,” Alicia looked at Al. “I’m glad you brought me here.”

Al nodded as she crunched on a chip smiling just slightly when, with her attention on the stage, she lay her hand on Alicia’s knee. Alicia laughed softly and looked at Al with the sort of look a parent would grace a mischievous but endearing child with. Al returned that look with a shrug that said _‘who me?’_

The band swung seamlessly into a song in three quarter time that featured the accordion player. The older couple were dancing again and smiling at each other in a way that Alicia found heartwarming. Without thinking about what she was doing, Alicia placed her hand over Al’s and threaded her fingers between those of the other woman.

“She’ll probably be at the thing later,” Al said gesturing to the woman on the stage with her nearly empty bottle.

The song had ended and the singer placed her guitar carefully on a stand. With a word or two to Ofelia, and a look that Alicia thought took in her and Al, she slipped out of the suit jacket she was wearing over a sleeveless shirt. Alicia was admiring her toned arms; continued to admire them as the singer approached their table holding three beer bottles in one hand.

Grabbing a chair from a nearby table, she turned it backward and, just before sitting in front of Al and Alicia, placed a full bottle in front of each of them.

“What’s up, Reckless?” the singer said fixing her green-eyed gaze on Al.

She was tall, maybe a bit taller than Al and just as thin. Her dark hair was cut short with long bangs and she had a somewhat pale complexion. Tipping back her bottle of Tecate she drained a quarter of it and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

“Not much, Belen. On a date,” Al pushed the basket of chips closer to the singer. “Thanks for the round.”

Belen nodded, dipped a chip in salsa and looked at Alicia. Feeling self-conscious, Alicia released Al’s hand. “I love your voice,” Alicia said a bit too quickly. “You’re amazing!”

Belen’s mouth quirked into a smile that became less cocky and more genuine when Alicia stretched her hand across the table. “Thank you,” she said taking Alicia’s hand in a solid grip.

“I’m Alicia, by the way.” Alicia smiled and drained the last of her first beer. “Thanks for this too.”

“De nada,” Belen gave a flick of her hand. Her eyes shifted to Al then back to Alicia. “Did she tell you we used to play together back in Santa Fe? She was good, really good.”

The emphasis on the word _play_ let Alicia know that more than music was likely involved.

“Crashing my date, chica?” Al said her voice low and slightly chill. “Our first date?”

Alicia watched fascinated as the two women stared at each other. The faceoff lasted until Belen took off her tinted glasses and hooked them in the front of her low-cut shirt. “I wouldn’t think of it!” Belen said and drank the rest of her beer in one draft. She grinned at Al and Al returned the smile with one of her own.

Ofelia was approaching the table with a tray of food. Belen gathered the basket of chips and the dips. “Mind if I…?” Al inclined her head in acceptance and the singer placed the food and her beer bottle on a nearby table. Turning back around she leaned close to Alicia and kissed her on the cheek. “Dance with me later, Alicia?”

Alicia didn’t get a chance to respond.

“Vamos, chica. You’re spoiling the vibe,” Al said firmly. 

Belen laughed as she walked away taking the tortilla chips with her.

The next few minutes were taken up with eating. Alicia stole glances at Al and saw that the other woman had relaxed now that they were alone again. She didn’t want to break the mood, but she was far too curious.

“You used to play guitar, Al?”

Al didn’t answer at first. She finished her second taco and took a long drink of beer. Wiping her fingers with a cloth serviette, she finally looked at Alicia. “Yeah, I did. Belen and I were in a rock band back in the day.” Dropping the cloth into her lap, Al rubbed her upper left arm with her right hand. When she pushed up her T-shirt sleeve, Alicia could see a deep scar. “When we broke up, the band that is, Belen moved on to roots music. She really found her niche; I’ll give her that.”

“And you?”

“Me?” Al started. “I quit school in Santa Fe and transferred to UC Berkeley where I got serious about journalism.”

“She said you were good, really good,” Alicia pressed.

Al sighed, drank more beer. Finally, with her sly smile in place, she looked at Alicia. “I’m good at a lot of things, Alicia.”

Alicia felt herself blush and saw Al’s smile get even broader. “So, what about you? You’re in university?”

Finishing the rice on her plate, Alicia sat back. “UCLA, Arts.”

Al waited until Ofelia had gathered up the empty dishes. “Arts is code for _‘I don’t know’ _so I hear.”

Alicia laughed not offended by the remark. “That’s perfect then, cause I don’t know what I want to do.” Alicia looked away. “I’ve never really been drawn to anything. Teaching maybe. My mom is a guidance counselor at the high school I went to.”

“And your dad?”

“He died in a car accident when I was eleven.”

“I’m sorry,” Al said softly.

“No worries,” Alicia said a little too flippantly. “I wouldn’t be able to go to a good school if it wasn’t for the money he left.” Alicia ran her hand along her thigh feeling self-conscious again. “Plus, I can live out on my own. My mom has a new man in her life and he’s got a son close to my age and an ex that’s not quite out of the picture. Then there’s my bother and all his problems… But you don’t want to hear about my fucked-up family.”

“I do if you want to tell me,” Al replied her voice still soft. “That’s what I do. Listen to people. Let them tell me their stories.”

Alicia looked closely at Al as if seeing her in a different light. “I bet you’re good at it. I can tell. Well, except for yesterday.” Alicia said the last teasingly.

Al laughed. “Yeah, she had expectations I wasn’t meeting. At least I can say that since it didn’t work out, I got to meet you.” Al dropped her hand on Alicia’s leg, dragged her fingers up a few inches before patting her twice. “Let’s get going. I’ll pay the bill and meet you by the washroom.”

**A few minutes later**

Al set a brisk pace when they started off down the street. Alicia had to double time it to catch up. Grabbing Al’s hand, she squeezed hard. “Hey, slow down a bit,” she said and smiled. “Short legs here.”

Al stopped and turned. “Cute legs there,” Al said looking Alicia up and down.

“Stop it,” Alicia gave her a playful swipe. “You’re incorrigible!”

Al just laughed and pulled Alicia along in a slower but still fast pace.

When they reached the venue, there were a few women milling around outside. Al cut past those that didn’t seem to be interested in entering just then and pushed through the heavy door. Inside, a tall woman – taller than Al by several inches – with multiple piercings and eye makeup that Alicia instantly admired was taking the cover charge. As Al dug in her pocket, Alicia looked at the woman’s sleeve tattoos. When the woman saw her looking, Alicia took a step back.

“You’re thinking about it?” the woman asked Alicia.

“Yeah, I am kinda…” Alicia replied.

The woman flicked her fingers and Alicia pulled her phone from her back pocket and handed it over.

“My sister does all my ink,” the tall woman said tapping on Alicia’s phone. “She has a place over on Normandie. She’ll help you out.” Handing the phone back she flicked her gaze at Al who had moved ahead of Alicia to the bar. “She did some of that one’s work too.”

“Really?” Alicia couldn’t contain her surprise.

The tall woman scrutinized Alicia before breaking out in a broad, warm smile.

“First date, huh?”

Alicia bit her lip. “That obvious?”

The other woman seemed about to say something else when Al called her name.

“Go on, go have fun,” the tall woman said.

Just past the bar that extended out into the big room beyond the entry way, Al had come to a stop. Alicia took the beer Al handed her and they stood side by side checking out the space. Someone had just finished something on the stage as the applause was dying out.

When it was obvious there was a break between acts, Al pointed to a table down in front by the dance floor. “You don’t have to pay for everything, you know,” Alicia said to the back of Al’s head as she followed behind Al to the table.

“Next round is yours then,” Al said as she pulled out a chair for Alicia at the end of the table and sat behind her.

Over the next hour or so Alicia learned a few things about Al. First, she knew a lot of people – women in this case – and second, that a few were obviously ex-girlfriends. Al didn’t seem uncomfortable by this in the least, so Alicia played it cool. Besides the familiarity vibe Al had going with half the women in the place, Alicia was becoming aware of another undercurrent. Some women were looking at her curiously. Checking her out, Alicia thought. Checking out Al’s new date. This became only too plain when Alicia went to the washroom.

She was in the stall next to the sinks where three women about her age, or slightly older -- in their mid-twenties -- were checking their makeup in front of the mirrors.

“I see Reckless Al is here tonight,” one of them said.

“No Easy Al for you tonight,” a second girl said. “She’s got a girl with her. Even younger than you, I think.”

“You’re just jealous,” a third girl huffed.

“Fucking right I am!” the first girl stated flatly.

Alicia took this as her cue to flush and exit the stall. When she slipped between two of the young women to the middle sink, she saw their startled expressions in the mirror. Washing her hands, she glanced at the girl to her right.

“I love your eye shadow,” Alicia said honestly. “That shade looks great on you.”

The girl, a Latina about her age, was taken aback for just a moment before she recovered. “Thank you,” she said watching Alicia toss her wad of paper towel in the trash can and walk to the door. As Alicia swung the door open, she heard the girls behind her start to giggle.

“That was her! You fucking idiot…”

The rest was cut off when the door closed at Alicia’s back.

There was a band on the stage when Alicia got back to their table. Sitting down she noticed a full bottle had appeared next to her nearly empty one. Al seemed to be deep in conversation with someone across the table so Alicia sat back and crossed her legs. After only a minute or so she felt Al’s breath in her hair.

“Sorry, I got thirsty,” Al said.

Alicia heard a chair scrap and Al moved so that she was nearly beside Alicia, draped an arm over her shoulder. “You having a good time? Sorry if I’m not giving you my full attention.”

Alicia narrowed her eyes at Al. “If this isn’t your full attention, I don’t know what is.” Alicia was serious. Al had barely left her side since they had arrived.

Al grinned wicked and sexy. “You might find out later, if you want to.”

Alicia was saved from replying when the band started to play. They were a five-piece rock band, all women. “I played with a couple of them before,” Al commented. After their second song, Avril Lavigne’s _Complicated_, Al jumped up and wove through the women moving off the dance floor. She exchanged a few words with the lead guitarist and watched as she adjusted a couple dials on an amp. The guitarist then hit a floor pedal with her toe and strummed a chord. Al nodded and turned away from the stage.

She was halfway back to the table, in the middle of the room, when some shouted at her.

“Hey, Al! Take it off! Show us what you’ve got!”

Shocked, Alicia turned toward the speaker, a woman, probably in her forties, at the table across from her and down a bit. There was laughter all around the room and Al seemed to be unaffected.

“Maybe later,” Al shouted back, “and not for you!”

Al sat down as the band began another song. Alicia leaned back and turned her head to speak into Al’s ear. “I’m beginning to think you have something of a reputation.”

“Oh?” Al answered. “Were you reading the bathroom wall?”

Alicia recoiled surprised, but Al was smiling in that playful way that Alicia was really beginning to appreciate. Her smile fading into a more serious look, Al leaned close to Alicia again. “Does it bother you?”

Alicia took some time to think about it. “If I find you making out with the girl I met in the bathroom that’s jealous as fuck of me by the way, then yeah, it might bother me.”

“I like you, Alicia.” The corner of Al’s mouth quirked into a smile and she draped her arm across Alicia’s shoulders again.

Alicia didn’t answer, just reached out and laid her hand on Al’s thigh above her knee.

The rock band finished their set and more musicians joined them on stage. Alicia was surprised to see three women uncasing a sax, trumpet and trombone.

“These guys are great! I can’t wait!” Al bounced up out of her seat and headed to the washroom.

Alicia was drinking the last of at least her fourth beer when Belen slipped into Al’s seat beside her. “She didn’t play tonight?”

“No,” Alicia answered. “She just adjusted somebody’s something,” Alicia gestured at the stage.

Belen laughed. “She’s got a good ear, that girl.”

“What about you?” Alicia looked at the guitar case next to the table.

“I’m joining the funky bunch,” Belen looked at the group on the stage. “Gotta go.”

The band had finished their sound check and Alicia could tell they were about to start playing when she spotted Al moving through the crowd carrying full bottles of beer.

“Are you trying to get me drunk?” Alicia asked as Al set the bottles, caps still on and two each, on their table.

“No,” Al laughed. “We’re going to need them.”

Her grin firmly in place she grabbed Alicia’s hand and pulled her to her feet and out onto the dance floor as the band played the opening riff of _September_ by Earth, Wind and Fire.

Arms flapping loosely around her, Al bounced on her toes with a pure exuberance Alicia found infectious. The song was about halfway through when, catching Alicia’s eye, Al moved in close. Her hands went to Alicia waist and under her white shirt now flowing loose as Alicia danced.

Closing the distance between them, Al matched their bodies together her right leg between Alicia’s. Moving back and forth in something Alicia thought might be a cross between a two-step and a jive, Alicia matched Al’s moves her arms going naturally around the other woman’s neck.

With hardly a pause the band began the opening drum beats of _December 63_ and Al moved behind Alicia, her arms still wrapped around the younger woman’s waist. Chin on Alicia’s shoulder, Al sang the first verse her voice higher and sweeter than Alicia expected.

Laughing, Alicia turned in Al’s arms as the band reached the chorus. “Ok, Reckless,” she said in Al’s ear. “Can you jive?”

Al gave her a look that said _‘Of, course I can’_ so Alicia moved her left hand to Al’s waist and took Al’s left hand with her right. Swinging close then apart again, Alicia began a fast-paced series of steps across the dance floor. Twirling Al around a couple times Alicia moved close again fitting their bodies together thigh to groin as Al had.

“OK, so that’s all I know of that,” Alicia said in Al’s ear.

“Me too,” Al responded and laughed. “I like this better.” Al smiled slyly at Alicia as she moved one hand low on Alicia’s hip and around her butt just a bit. Her other hand moved to the small of Alicia’s back and under her inner shirt against her bare skin.

Pulling their bodies tight together Al nuzzled Alicia’s hair as they swayed their hips together in a sensual way that was beginning to leave Alicia breathless.

“You smell good,” Al said close to Alicia’s ear.

“My brother’s cologne,” Alicia laughed. “You like it?”

“I do,” Al pulled back enough to look at Alicia’s face. “A little butch to go with all your femme.”

“Do girls still think like that?” Alicia asked seriously.

“Some do, I suppose,” Al looked at Alicia again. “Not me. I just take women for what they are and whatever they want to be. Because me…”

“You’re just you,” Alicia finished. “And I’m just me.”

The band finished _We Are Family_ and started another funky song heavy on the horn section that everyone seemed to know except Alicia. The dancers around them were forming a line and starting a loose line dance. When the band sang the chorus ‘_ooh la la la let’s go dancin’ Reggae dancin’,_ Al let go of Alicia and pulled her into line.

The steps were simple: a left, right, clap, turn sort of thing that Alicia had down pat after just a couple times through. Beside her, Al’s interpretation was a bit looser but endearing in the way only Al could do; in Alicia’s eyes at least.

The lead singer had stepped down off the stage and was slowly approaching the dancers her voice a deep Chaka Kahn timbre with a Jamaican lilt. Alicia was sure she was going for Al and was surprised when the large woman in the flowing dress reached out and took her hand.

Singing to Alicia and only Alicia she swayed her hips in rhythm to the bass guitar. When the song went to the chorus again, she dropped Alicia’s hand and, with a wink, moved farther down the line of dancers. Alicia dropped back beside Al. “You’re attracting all the girls,” Al said close to her ear.

“Jealous?”

“Horribly, obviously, and endlessly,” Al replied and grinned.

This time there was a pause between songs as Belen moved to the front and center of the stage. Al took Alicia’s hand and led her back to their table where she uncapped two bottles with an effortless twist of her wrist. Al handed one to Alicia and tapped their bottles together.

Alicia tipped her bottle back and drank half of it. She was lucky she did because when the band, with Belen leading the vocals, started up a fast Spanish dance / rap song, Al put her bottle down and dragged Alicia back out on the dance floor again. Alicia was beginning to wonder where Al got her energy as she began to dance flapping her arms and bouncing on the balls of her feet. Free to do her own thing beside her partner, Alicia let the music lead her and she watched Al out of the corner of her eye as the other woman shot glances her way.

After several fast songs, Belen picked the opening notes to _Despacito_ on her acoustic giving Al and Alicia a chance to retreat to their table again. After a slow beginning, the song picked up with Belen rapping out the lyrics in Spanish much to the delight of the younger Latinas. Alicia would swear she saw Belen point and wink at the girl she had met in the washroom.

Al lifted herself to a sitting position on the end of the table with Alicia fitting naturally between her knees. They drank beer and watched Belen flirt with the girls as she sang. The next song was slower with a sexy rhythm that had Al purring in Alicia’s ear. Alicia turned slowly her arms going around Al’s neck. With one hand she smoothed Al’s long bangs back from her face. The other held a handful of Al’s T-shirt, at her collarbone, tight in her fist.

“What happens now?” Alicia whispered feeling both nervous and aroused.

“Whatever you want,” Al answered her playful eyes holding Alicia’s. “You can kiss me if you want. That would be nice.”

Alicia took in a slow breath as her fingers traced Al’s cheek and jaw. The other woman did not lean into her, or grab her to pull her close; Al simply waited, her look gentle but intense. Breathing out again Alicia shut down the questioning part of her mind and let her body have its way. Slowly she closed the distance between her and Al and their lips touched softly. Al was just beginning to respond, her hand in Alicia’s hair, when there was a loud cry and someone crashed into the table beside them. Bottles clattered on the table as the drunk woman stumbled and flailed her arms.

Al broke away from Alicia and hopped down off the table as a spreading puddle of beer approached her rear end. Taking Alicia’s hand, she started toward the door.

“C’mon, let’s go.”

Al led the way out of the club, out onto the street, then down a long residential street. When they had turned onto another residential street, this one lined with beautiful fully leafed-out trees and large well-kept houses, Alicia tugged on Al’s hand and pulled her to a stop.

“Slow down! I’m out of breath!” Alicia leaned forward, palms on her knees.

“Don’t worry, happens to all the girls I kiss!”

Alicia swiped at Al who scampered off down the street ahead of her. When, after a couple of minutes, they turned into the driveway of a house with a large garage. Alicia stopped again.

Al turned and looked at her as if sensing her reluctance. “No expectations,” Al said walking back to her. “If you just want to come in and call an Uber or whatever, I’m cool with that.”

“Right now, all I want is to have a drink of water and to sit down for a bit,” Alicia said following Al up the outside stairs to a large apartment above the garage. Al used a key to open the door and when she closed it, it rattled until she gave it a swift kick with her boot heel.

“Stupid door doesn’t always latch.”

Inside was one large room with the kitchen area next to the door, separated by a low wall. The ceiling was peaked and crossed by old, heavy wood beams. Al got two bottles of water from the fridge, gave one to Alicia and the other she drank as she pulled off her boots and headed to the bathroom on the other side of the room across from her bed.

“I’m going to have a shower. Be right out,” Alicia heard Al say as water started running sounding loud in the open area. Al had left the bathroom door half open and Alicia watched as first her jeans and then her T-shirt were tossed on the floor.

Drinking her water, Alicia wandered to the large rough made table that took up most of the outer wall next to the bathroom. There were two video cameras – one obviously undergoing repairs of some sort – newspapers, pictures, some in frames and some loose, scattered over the planks that made up the table. A large binder, half hidden under a messy copy of the LA Times, caught Alicia’s eye.

The spine of the binder had lettering on it with each letter taken from a different source like kidnappers did in 1970’s movies for their ransom notes. _with reckless disregard_, Alicia read as she pulled the binder out from under the city section of the Times.

Flipping open the cover to the first page she found a newspaper clipping. _Reporter fired from local TV news bureau for irresponsible __behaviour_, read the headline. There was a picture of a news van with the logo of a Phoenix TV station on the side. Al sat on the edge of the open van door holding a camera and, when Alicia looked closer, she could see blood on the side of Al’s face. The article was dated four months ago.

Flipping to the next couple of pages, Alicia found more news stories. Some were clippings others were printouts from the Web. These stories were more complementary; along the lines of _‘reporter gets interview with such and such famous recluse’_ or _‘reporter gets the real story behind such and such event’._ Several stories back, and dated five years ago, was a clipping from a Santa Fe newspaper that had a picture of Al with her camera under the headline ‘local journalist nominated for Pulitzer Prize’. As there was no follow up, Alicia assumed she hadn’t won.

Farther back still were stories of Al’s exploits that made Alicia wonder how she had managed to survive her career at all. The one that shocked her the most had a picture of a sweaty dishevelled Al sitting against a low stone wall and the headline _‘Journalist survives kidnapping in Sudan and bout with malaria’_. The last page of career highlights – if they could be called that, Alicia thought – was from the UC Berkeley newspaper and, as Alicia read quickly, was something along the line of _‘students rescue injured people just before the collapse of the WTC Towers on 9/11’. _

Alicia gave a start when she heard the shower turn off in the bathroom. The pages near the back of the binder held several related news stories. Most were dated eighteen years ago and were from Santa Fe newspapers. Alicia only had a moment to take in headlines like _‘deaths during home invasion’_ and _‘local teen showed reckless disregard in shooting says prosecutor’_ before closing the binder and shoving it back under the newspapers.

Al came out of the bathroom wearing a tight pair of men’s Hanes underwear and an unbuttoned red flannel shirt. Toweling her hair dry, she approached Alicia. “Do you want to shower first,” Al ran her fingers through Alicia’s hair as she pushed it over Alicia’s shoulder and out of her face, “or…?”

The open-ended question did not surprise Alicia but her own reaction did. She felt a sort of sober self-awareness she hadn’t expected to be feeling when she heard herself say: “I’m not sure I’m ready. I… maybe I should…”

Al smiled when Alicia couldn’t finish and kissed her softly on the forehead. “It’s OK,” Al said. “No expectations, remember? I’ll take the comfy chair and you can have the bed.”

Alicia just nodded and turned toward the bathroom. When she came out after a shower about fifteen minutes later, the lights were all off except a soft glow from a bulb in the stove’s range hood. Al was asleep in the lounge chair at the foot of the bed her legs stretched out and curled slightly on the long footrest. Alicia went to the bed and pulled back the covers. As she slipped between the sheets and lay her head on the pillow, she breathed in Al’s scent and felt a stirring of arousal.

She fell asleep thinking of Al, hands on her hips, their bodies pressed tight together on the dance floor.

**A few hours later**

Alicia sighed as she woke and rolled over. The room was brighter than when she had fallen asleep so she thought it must be early morning. Al was still asleep in the chair, Alicia noticed as she sat up. Al’s face was turned away, her jaw relaxed and eyes closed. Her round cheek looked sweet and softly innocent to Alicia. The blanket she had over her had slipped down and Alicia could see the swell of a breast inside Al’s open shirt.

The excitement Alicia had felt earlier came back to her big time. The longing settled on her chest like a weight and moved downward forcefully into her belly and even lower. Without thinking, Alicia got out of bed wearing her underpants and the T-shirt of Al’s she had found in the bathroom. She crossed the floor and swung her leg over Al straddling her thighs.

Al drew in a deep breath as she woke but Alicia didn’t give her much of a chance to breathe before she kissed her. Alicia’s hand found its way inside Al’s open shirt and across her warm chest as she pressed her lips to Al’s. Al’s eyes blinked a couple times then closed as she responded to the kiss. Alicia felt Al’s hips push upwards as her back arched.

“I want to make love to you I just don’t know what I should…” Alicia didn’t finish as she stared at Al and watched the other woman’s expression change as she bit her lip.

“Umm… you can do for me what you’d like me to do for you,” Al said softly. “And that was a good start; a really good start.”

Alicia leaned in kissing Al again, deeper, and with the tip of her tongue beginning to explore Al’s lips more intimately.

Al’s hands were under Alicia’s T-shirt and, as Alicia broke their kiss, she felt Al go still. Al shifted her head to the other side of Alicia’s and whispered in her ear.

“There’s a girl with a gun behind you by the door.”

Alicia tried to pull back to look at Al, but the other woman held her tightly in place. “Al, I’m not sure I’m into roleplaying or whatever just yet,” Alicia replied very softly.

“Not roleplaying,” Al said equally softly. “Just stay cool.”

Alicia turned her head just a bit toward the bed. There was a laptop computer on the bedside table the screen open and dark. Like the scene in the movie_ Signs_ where the family see the alien reflected in the blank screen of their TV, Alicia could see a figure in the room behind her on the screen of the laptop.

“Stan?” she whispered directly in Al’s ear.

“Yeah, I think so.”


	3. Stan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Crazy ass bitches are a dime a dozen.”

“I got this,” Alicia whispered.

Pushing off Al’s chest with both hands, she moved quickly and aggressively across the room toward the person she could now see more clearly where she stood by Al’s work table.

“Who the _fuck_ are you?!” Alicia shouted using the hard inflection she had heard the girls from her high school, who fancied themselves gangsters, use. “You come in here interrupting me and my girl getting it on and what? What the fuck you want?!”

The woman was young. Probably Alicia’s own age and she was thin and, as Alicia would think of it later, somewhat ragged as if she hadn’t slept much recently. She wore a dark windbreaker type jacket and black jeans. On her head, and pulled down low, was a baseball cap with the logo of what Alicia assumed was a sports team. The most telling thing about her appearance was her dull, almost dead eyes.

Out of her peripheral vision, Alicia saw Al moving up on her left approaching the young woman where she stood now one hand on Al’s binder of clippings and the other holding a semi-auto pistol low in front of her.

The gun snapped up and pointed at Al. With her other hand, her right, the woman drew the binder off the table and down against her side where she held it tightly. Al’s eyes followed this movement closely.

“Hey!” Alicia shouted. “Put that the fuck down before I rearrange your fucking face, bitch!”

The woman’s eyes turned to Alicia and Al made her move.

Lunging forward, Al slapped her right hand down on top of the pistol her thumb moving to the magazine release button below the slide. The loaded mag dropped from the pistol and hit the floor with a thunk. Her momentum carrying her forward, Al pushed down on the woman’s arm as she fought for control of the gun.

The woman dropped the binder and brought her right hand around and, in an uncoordinated move, slapped Al on the side of her head with her half-closed fist. The gun still between them, Al tried to spin away only succeeding in bumping into Alicia.

The gun fired. The sound was louder than Alicia thought possible and, as Al collapsed back into her, Alicia could barely hear Al’s grunt of shock and pain through her ringing ears. The gun fell to the floor at Al’s feet and Alicia and Al fell backward to land in a mess of arms and legs, Al on top.

Alicia watched holding Al against her as the young woman stooped to pick up not the gun, but the binder.

“You never even looked at me,” she said with, what Alicia would recall later, a bitter sadness.

The next few minutes of time Alicia would recall in bits and pieces some of them out of sequence. Al was bleeding. Clutching her side, she rolled off of Alicia and looked toward the door. The young woman was gone.

“Bitch took my scrapbook!”

Alicia got to her knees and looked down at Al’s wound. Blood oozed from between Al’s fingers and Alicia grabbed the first thing she got her hands on, a T-shirt, and, pulling Al’s hands away from her side, pressed the cloth to the wound and pushed Al’s hands back in place. The wound was a long gash where the bullet had grazed and not penetrated.

Alicia went looking for a phone and found hers on the bedside table. With bloody fingers she dialed 911. Telling the operator her friend had been shot by an intruder, Alicia felt herself calming. The operator recited an address Alicia realized was for her university housing. When she was completely blank on where they were, she held out the phone to Al, who shouted out the address.

The police were the first to arrive and Al knew the senior officer. Alicia had managed to do up a few buttons on Al’s shirt but she couldn’t keep the woman still. Al was tossing papers around on her work table and cursing.

“I told you to get that door fixed,” the officer with sergeant’s stripes on her shoulder and dark blond hair under her LAPD ball cap looked at Al clearly annoyed.

“I didn’t get to it yet,” Al leaned against the table for support. “I thought it latched last night.”

Alicia went to stand beside Al taking her arm for further support.

The sergeant stepped closer to Al and looked down at the gun on the floor, slide locked back and the magazine a few feet away. “We all know your door’s always open, Al,” the cop’s clear blue eyes moved to Alicia. “Tell me what happened.”

“Fuck off!” Al said heatedly and Alicia held her tighter to her side. “I’m alright. You can cancel the damn ambulance. I’ll go to Doctor Jane’s and get some stitches. Alright?” The last was said almost pleadingly.

The sergeant turned away and spoke into the mic clipped to her lapel. When she turned back around, her look was even more serious. “Now tell me what happened, Al.”

“I have a stalker…” Al started.

Huffing out a breath the sergeant planted her hands on her hips and looked at Al with what Alicia thought was aggrieved disbelief.

“Well, don’t fucking believe me! Whatever! I don’t care!” Al swayed on her feet and Alicia almost lost her grip on Al’s right elbow. “Call Jimenez. I’ll talk to her.”

“Sit her down!” the sergeant barked and Alicia half dragged Al to the long lounge chair. Al dropped onto her butt with a sigh and Alicia handed her a water bottle. “Detective Jimenez doesn’t like you Al since you went running off after that drug dealer on our ride along.”

“I don’t care, she’s a good cop.” Al held her head up, chin out indignantly. “And I told you, I don’t stay in the car.”

The sergeant gave Al a look that to Alicia said _‘you don’t do anything anyone asks you’_, and, taking out her cell phone, turned away.

Alicia took the opportunity to look at Al closely. Al’s face was damp with sweat and pale. “Are you OK? You sure you shouldn’t go to the hospital?”

Al didn’t answer because, stomping loudly on the stairs, the sergeant’s partner appeared at the door. “There’s no one around, sarge. I found a recycling bin propped against the back fence and one of the boards was broken at the top. I think someone went over the fence in a hurry.”

“Did you find a big binder?” Al looked at him.

“No, nothing like that, sorry.”

Hanging up and pocketing her phone, the sergeant ordered him to bag the gun and mag and take pictures of the fence and door.

“You’re lucky, Detective Jimenez is in a good mood. She’ll meet us at the clinic.” The sergeant shook her head at Al and Alicia. “Now why don’t you two love birds put on some fucking pants and we’ll go. I’ll drive you.”

Doctor Jane’s clinic turned out to be yet another storefront off a busy street lined with commercial buildings, and Doctor Jane was a nurse practitioner, if Alicia was reading her name tag and the letters after her name correctly.

As it was still early, the place was not yet open. A few people were lined up in the front so the sergeant drove around back. They had only been there long enough for Alicia and the male officer to get Al out of the backseat when a car drove up and a woman as tall as Al with somewhat frizzy dark blond hair and an efficient manner got out and, taking one look at Al propped between Alicia and the officer, rolled her eyes and began unlocking the multiple locks on the back door.

“Take her into exam one,” the nurse flipped on light switches as she moved through the back hall toward the front. Another nurse or assistant, Alicia couldn’t tell, watched them with a look of concern. “Let the people in the front and get them processed, Doris. I’ll take care of the reckless one.”

Once Al was up on the exam table, the sergeant looked at her partner. “Go get us some coffee and breakfast at McD’s,” she ordered. “And get something for…” she looked pointedly at Alicia.

“Alicia,” Alicia looked at the young man warmly and smiled. “Thank you.”

He smiled back at her and hesitated long enough that the sergeant barked at him. “Get going, Boot. Those McGreasy things aren’t gonna make themselves and you don’t have a chance with anyone here.”

“Yes, sergeant!” Turning on his heel smartly, he left the exam room.

Jane bustled back into the room now wearing a lab coat over scrubs. She went to the sink and washed her hands thoroughly. Pulling on gloves and a taking a sterile instrument tray from a shelf, she went to the left side of the bed and stood looking down at Al.

“What did you do this time?”

“Got shot by a crazy woman,” Al looked up at her and tried to smile.

Jane lifted Al’s shirt and peeled the blood-soaked T-shirt from her wound. When she probed with a finger near Al’s lowest rib, Al yelped in pain.

“We better X-ray this,” Jane said. “I’ll get an IV line in and get you something for the pain.” Turning toward the door Jane shouted for her assistant. “Doris! I need help with an X-ray.”

There was a shout of acknowledgement from the front and once the IV was in and pain meds administered, Doris and Jane rolled Al out of the room.

“First dates with Al are always a ball of laughs,” the sergeant said to Alicia once they were alone. “Remind me to tell you what she did on ours.”

Alicia frowned. “Why is it everyone assumes this is our first date?”

“I don’t know about everyone else, but with me and a few girls I know, there was no second date with Al.”

“Look,” Alicia leaned close to the cop and looked at her nameplate, “Sergeant Yarborough, I’m getting a bit tired of this attitude about Al. The poor woman was shot!”

“So, tell me about it,” Yarborough propped her butt on a stool and took a notebook from her pocket. “Just the facts, ma’am. And skip the part about you two getting down and dirty. When Jimenez gets here, she’s not gonna wanna hear any of that.”

Alicia began the story starting at the point when she and Al woke up and were making out on the lounge chair. Yarborough asked about the door and if she knew it didn’t shut properly allowing the intruder to gain entry. Alicia was describing Al’s stan when Jane rolled Al back into the room. Doris followed a minute or two later and pinned an X-ray film on the lightbox on the wall.

“Fragment on her rib,” Jane said changing her gloves and opening the instrument tray. Using a needle and syringe she injected lidocaine around Al’s wound. “Put on gloves and a mask and you can assist me.” Jane said to Alicia. “Wash the blood off first. And don’t worry; she’s not going to sue. She’s lucky she can pay.”

Alicia looked down at her hands. There’s was blood smeared all over her hands and up her right forearm. And on the phones and wallet that belonged to both of them and to Al. She had given the sergeant her driver’s license which was the only ID she carried.

She washed at the sink and put on the mask then the gloves Jane had directed. Al had been laying still with her eyes closed until Alicia, directed by Jane, pulled Al’s wound open with a Senn retractor.

“Not how I was hoping you’d be getting inside me,” Al said and giggled.

“Shush, you,” Jane smiled at Al indulgently.

Jane had removed the bullet fragment and was closing the wound when Alicia’s phone rang. Alicia stripped off one glove and pulled her phone from her pocket as she stepped out into the hall. The call display flashed with her mother’s picture.

Alicia sighed and considered not taking the call but if her mother was calling and not texting, she expected to be answered.

“Alicia, have you heard from your brother?” her mother said without any sort of greeting.

“Not for a couple of days, Mom,” Alicia replied turning away from Yarborough and her partner who were sitting on chairs and eating McMuffins and drinking coffee.

In an unfortunate act of bad timing, Doris chose that moment to shout down the hall. “Doctor Jane? Are you almost done? Mrs. Rawlinson needs her eczema treated. She won’t stop scratching!”

“Where are you?” Alicia’s mother’s voice was clearly audible to the two cops and Alicia blushed and moved farther away when Yarborough laughed.

“I’m at a clinic. My friend was shot!” Alicia blurted and instantly regretted it.

“Doctor Jane? I know her,” the was a shuffling sound as if she had almost dropped her phone. “I’m not far. I’ll be there in a couple minutes.” With that Alicia was left holding her phone and looking at a disconnected call and wondering why, in a city the size of LA, everyone seemed to know everyone.

The young cop handed her a coffee cup and a greasy wrapped muffin. Alicia leaned against the door jamb. “My mother’s coming,” she said when Jane looked at her.

“Really? That’s great!” Al smiled broadly.

“Al were you drinking?” Jane looked at her patient accusingly. “You should’ve told me before I gave you all that Demerol!”

Al just shrugged and giggled. “I’m good.”

“You are good, you’re too good,” Jane said taping a large bandage in place on Al’s side.

“Shhhhh, don’t tell her that,” Al said in a loud whisper. “She hasn’t found out for herself yet. I don’t want you spoiling it.”

Jane laughed and started out of the room. “I’ll be back in a bit.”

Sergeant Yarborough moved into the room behind Alicia.

“Easy Al, keeps all the girls happy; at least once.” Yarborough looked at Al and shook her head.

“Especially you!” Al said. “At least that’s what I’m thinking since you kept shoving my head back down between your legs!”

“Whose head is between whose legs?”

A tall, dark haired woman with an unmistakable air of authority walked into the room and looked around. When her gaze crossed that of Sergeant Yarborough, the blond cop stepped back and looked away. The woman gave Alicia a long look before her intense gaze settled on Al. Al who was feeling no pain, and evidently not caring about much.

“Not mine and not between yours, Detective Veronica Luciana Esperanza Rodriguez-Jimenez,” Al announced looking at the detective with open admiration. “And that is a_ damn_ shame!”

Yarborough gasped and Alicia bit her lip trying not to laugh as she dropped into a chair and the foot of Al’s bed. When she looked up, she saw the male cop standing in the doorway blushing bright red. There was movement behind him and Alicia’s mother came into the room.

“Alicia! Are you alright?” Madison Clarke knelt next to her daughter’s chair. 

“I’m fine, Mom,” Alicia said working hard to control her voice. When Madison looked at her questioningly, she whispered, “I’m laughing, not crying.”

“So, Althea Esmerelda Szewczyk-Przygocki,” the detective said. “What trouble have you gotten into now?”

“I don’t have a middle name,” Al said indignantly, “and if I did it would be the name of some Polish saint no one can pronounce and no one outside of the twelfth century cares about.”

Detective Jimenez let out a long breath and blinked slowly. “I’ve seen you drunk, Althea. But I don’t think I’ve had the unique honour of seeing you high on…”

“Demerol,” Jane said moving back into the room. “I think I gave you too much. Are you saying inappropriate things?”

Al snapped her fingers clumsily. “Now that would make a good middle name. ‘Inappropriate.’ I like it.”

“I think my patient needs a time out,” Jane looked around at the others in the room.

Alicia and Madison started toward the door as did Yarborough when Jimenez gave her a look, but the detective stayed put.

“I don’t think you’re going to get much out of Al,” Jane stood in front of the rigid detective. “Unless you want to hear more about her sex life.”

Jimenez looked at Al and back at Jane impassively. Then she looked at Alicia.

“Alicia Clarke? And…?”

“Madison Clarke. I’m her mother.”

“Mother? Are you not old enough for me to interview without your parent being present?” Jimenez scrutinized Alicia in a way that made her uncomfortable as Jane started to herd them out of the room.

They were almost out of the room when Al decided to call out a parting shot. “Honestly, officer. I thought she was old enough when I took her back to my place last night.”

“Al!” Alicia hissed. “Shut up! Please!”

In the hallway Jimenez took Alicia’s license from Yarborough. “Go finish your shift, Sergeant. I’ll talk to you later.”

There was still a McDonald’s bag on the chair in front of them along with a single coffee in a four-cup tray. Jimenez pulled the coffee free of the cardboard tray and handed it to Madison.

“I think you might need this. Sit down for a while. Your daughter is going to tell me what happened this morning.”

**Later**

Jane had released Al into Alicia’s custody and, after filling Al’s prescription at the pharmacy next to the clinic, Madison had insisted on driving them back to Al’s. While waiting for Al’s drugs, Madison had taken a call from Travis who told her Nick had reappeared at home. Alicia didn’t know if she was relived or disappointed.

Sitting with Al in the backseat of Madison’s car, Alicia watched her mother watch her and Al in the rearview mirror.

Finally, Madison asked the inevitable. “How old are you, Althea?”

Al leaned against Alicia and said under her breath but still loud enough for Madison to hear. “She’s calling me by my full name. This is serious, I think. Is she serious when she calls you by your full name?”

“Alicia is my full name,” Alicia responded.

“We used to call her Licia at home. Her brother especially,” Madison said still looking at Al.

Al sat back and thought about this. Alicia watched as she seemed to be trying to sound it out. “Never mind,” Alicia said. “When were little he couldn’t say Alicia.”

Al looked at Alicia and gave an exaggerated frown. “I’m half drunk and totally high and I can say Alicia.” Al smiled. “Alicia, Alicia, Alicia! She always gets all the attention.”

Alicia could see her mother smiling in the mirror. “If you’re dropping Brady Bunch references that would put you, at the least, in your fifties, and I don’t believe that.”

Alicia went to elbow Al and thought better of it. “Just tell her Al. She won’t give up until she gets it out of you.”

“_Gets it out of me_?” Al repeated. “That sounds like fun. But don’t worry I won’t hit on your mom. I did that once with a girl and it didn’t go very well.” Before Alicia could comment, Al continued. “Besides, I think Madison and Detective Jimenez would make an amazing couple. Don’t you?”

Alicia opened her mouth and closed it. She didn’t know what to say. When she thought about it though, she could kinda see her mom and the dark haired, serious Latina together.

“I dated a girl in college,” Madison said out of nowhere.

“I think your mother has been taking my drugs.” Al leaned her head on Alicia’s shoulder.

“Mom! Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously. She was sweet. I liked her very much. Then I graduated and met your father and she met someone and now we are both married with kids.”

“Proving once again that lesbianism is only a passing phase and not a serious thing,” Al said suddenly serious.

There was silence in the car. Madison was driving slowly down the street and Alicia recognized the driveway to Al’s apartment and told her mother to turn.

Madison put the car in park and tried to meet Al’s eyes in the mirror but Al was already halfway out of the backseat. Madison met her at the front of car.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.”

“I’m thirty-five, Mrs. Clarke,” Al stated flatly. “If you’re OK with that maybe you can write me a note.”

Madison crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m forty-three. And if my daughter wants to date you that’s her decision. She’s a big girl and the smartest, kindest girl I could ever imagine having as my daughter.”

Al leaned against the hood of the car and Alicia walked quickly past her mother to put her arm gently around Al.

“You forgot brave,” Al stood up straight and faced Madison directly. “Do you know what she did this morning?”

Alicia tried to stop Al from continuing. Madison had not been part of Detective Jimenez’s interview back at the clinic. It had just been Alicia and Jimenez when Alicia told the story.

Al wouldn’t be stopped. “She walked right up to a nutcase with a gun and got right in her face. If it wasn’t for Alicia distracting her, we would probably both be dead right now!”

Alicia wasn’t breathing. Out of the corner of her eye she could see Al’s eyes were wet with unshed tears.

Madison stared at Al for a long moment before turning away. “Take her upstairs, Alicia,” Madison said over her shoulder as she walked to the back of the car. “I have some groceries. I’ll get them. You two probably need something to eat.”

Alicia got Al up the outside stairs, into the apartment and then into the bathroom. Alicia looked away running water in the sink when Al dropped her pants and sat on the toilet.

“IV drip makes me pee. I like your mother,” Al said as if the two things were related.

Alicia handed Al a wet facecloth and continued to avert her eyes as Al wiped at a smudged blood stain on her bare thigh. “Not going to help?” Al said playfully.

“Cleaning blood off your girl is appropriate only on the fourth date,” Alicia stated. “Page 66 of _Dating Girls for Dummies._ We have it at the library.”

Al managed to get herself into clean shorts and T-shirt and when they came out of the bathroom Madison was wiping up the blood on the floor in front of Al’s worktable.

“You didn’t have to…” Alicia started to say as she helped Al into bed stacking several pillows behind her.

“All done,” Madison was in the kitchen putting the bloody paper towels in the trash can. “I put the macaroni and cheese in the oven. It will be ready in a few minutes.”

Al leaned back on the pillows and sighed. “Your mom made me mac and cheese; can I keep her?”

“I don’t think she’d stay, sorry. She has a world of people to take care of.”

**Later**

Alicia was dozing beside Al on the bed when there was a knock on the door. Getting up she looked at the digital clock on the bedside table. It was 6:35 and for a moment Alicia didn’t know if it was AM or PM. Al didn’t stir so Alicia went to the door.

Sergeant Yarborough stood on the step holding Al’s binder. The scrapbook was in a large plastic Ziplock bag and inside it was held together by a small bungee cord. When Alicia opened the door, Yarborough glanced inside and saw Al asleep on the bed.

“How’s she doing?” the sergeant said and stepped back out onto the landing. Alicia followed her. Yarborough was dressed in sweats and the blond hair loose around her shoulders looked damp.

“She’s good. Finally stopped with the one-liners I think,” Alicia answered. “You shoulda heard what she said to my mother.”

“I can imagine,” Yarborough grinned and Alicia thought she looked totally different. Less fierce, though fierce was not all that unattractive on her either. “You have no idea how much play I could get outta what she said to Vrod.”

“Vee-rod?”

“Jimenez’s nickname. And Al got it right. It is a damn shame. That woman is as straight as the days are long.” Yarborough laughed lightly. “Anyway, give her this back. We got her. Clements spotted her behind a Trader Joe’s not far from here, she’s been booked and Jimenez allowed this to be cleared from evidence since it’s so important to Al.”

“Stan?”

Yarborough looked confused for a moment. “Oh, right! Stalker fan. Yeah, her. She’s a whack job. She was asleep in her car. Clements pointed out the Arizona plates and when we looked inside, the binder was right there on the front seat. I knew what it was, but for his sake, I flipped it open to the first page and there’s the story about Al getting trashed from her job at the same station Stan worked at. So, Stan started crying when we put the cuffs on her going on about how much she loves Al.” Yarborough looked away for a moment and, without meeting Al’s eyes, said softly, “Her and half the fucking universe.”

“I hope she’s alright,” Alicia said softly.

“Who? Stan?” Yarborough made a dismissive sound. “Crazy ass bitches are a dime a dozen.”

Alicia could tell she wanted to say more but was holding back. Yarborough looked away again and bit her lip. Coming to a conclusion, she looked straight at Alicia. “Make sure she takes you on a second date, Alicia. You’re too good a girl to get tossed aside like the rest of us.”

Alicia was saved from saying anything in return when there was a thump of a car door and Belen appeared at the bottom of the steps.

“Sergeant Sarah,” Belen climbed to within two steps of the landing and stopped. “Still keeping the city safe from straight people and heart sick lesbians with guns?”

“Still playing your guitar at the Taco Bell for pesos and besos, chica?”

“More kisses than dollars, you know me. What about you?”

Yarborough made a face and would’ve said something back at Belen except Al was at the door. Snaking her arms around Alicia she rested her chin on the shorter woman’s shoulder. “And here I thought all my exes lived in Texas,” Al quipped. “Why don’t y’all come in? We can…” Al stopped short. She had spotted the binder Yarborough held.

When Al started to reach for it, Yarborough handed it over. Without another word Al turned back inside. The three women stood awkwardly on the door step.

“Thanks, Sarah,” Alicia said the sergeant’s first name tentatively.

“No prob, Alicia. Listen, Jimenez will be calling you tomorrow about going down to the station to make the ID on Stan.”

“Like on TV? A lineup?” Alicia grinned at the prospect.

“Yeah, like that,” Yarborough rolled her eyes. “Take care of Reckless, alright?”

“I will, thanks.”

Yarborough and Belen exchanged a look Alicia couldn’t decipher at first when they passed on the stairs. The way Belen watched Yarborough’s rear as the shorter woman went down the stairs then made it perfectly clear to Alicia.

“Don’t tell me you two slept together,” Alicia said when Belen finally took her eyes of Yarborough’s ass.

“We fucked once when we were both drunk and lonely. The sex was better in the morning when we were a bit more sober. That the way it went with you and Al?”

“Huh. No, we didn’t. Not yet,” Alicia paused. “Does everyone kiss and tell when it comes to Al?”

Belen took off her sunglasses, tucked one the arms in the front of her shirt. “Everyone seems to. Everyone but Al.”

Al was in the bathroom when Alicia and Belen went inside. When she came out, she had removed her bandage and was poking at her stitches with a fingernail.

“Stop that!” Snatching up the pharmacy bag with the extra bandages, Alicia crossed the floor quickly. “Lay down and be still!”

Al said nothing just did as she was told. Alicia dabbed some antibiotic cream to the raw edges of the stitched gash and applied a fresh bandage.

“Do you want more pills?”

Al nodded and Alicia thought she seemed small and deflated. Something about seeing that binder again, Alicia thought. When she took a quick look around, the thing was nowhere in sight.

“You guys can go; I don’t need you here anymore.” Al lay back on the pillows and drained the rest of the water Alicia had given her to drink with the medication.

“You don’t seriously think you’re going to get rid of me that easy, do you?” Alicia laid her hand flat on Al’s chest. “Her either,” Alicia shot a look over her shoulder at Belen.

Al didn’t respond, just shut her eyes tight. After time went by and Al still said nothing, Alicia picked up Al’s hand and softly kissed her knuckles. “I like you witty, sweet Al; horribly, obviously, endlessly. Reckless or not I want to see you again. I want our second date.”

At those words, Al huffed and looked away. “I have to work tomorrow morning,” Alicia told Al. “So, I’ll go home but you better call me, OK? If you don’t, you’ll have another stan on your hands.”

Al smiled without looking at Alicia.

With a gentle touch on her chin, Alicia turned Al’s face back to her. Leaning slowly forward, she kissed Al tenderly on her forehead then, even more softly, on the mouth. Al made a sound somewhere between a whimper and sigh of pleasure.

“Bed smells like you,” Al whispered.

“Good, then you won’t forget me.”

Alicia stood slowly and with a sigh started walking toward Belen.

“Drive her home, Izzy-belly!” Al said and rolled over on her side.

“Si, Senora!” Belen sketched a salute at the bed and rolled her eyes. “I’ll be back in a while.”

Alicia preceded her through the door and stopped on the landing. “Izzy-belly?”

Belen pulled the door firmly closed and turned a key in the deadbolt lock. “My middle name is Isobel. When we were kids, Al called me Izzy-belly as a sort of secret name for me.”

At the bottom of the stairs Belen turned and looked at Alicia. Her expression was a mix of pain and something close to anger. When Alicia reached the ground, Belen took her hand and led her into the backyard of the big house. There was a kid’s swing set, old but still sturdy looking. Belen sat on one swing seat and pushed the other toward Alicia.

Alicia sat and, swinging just a bit back and forth, waited for the other woman to speak. Belen was different today, not the carefully styled performer from last night. Dressed in a dull grey T-shirt, cargo shorts and boots she looked like a normal girl Alicia would expect to find in Al’s orbit. And she was a girl with a lot on her mind.

With no words forthcoming, Alicia gestured to the house. “Whose place is this?”

“Friends of Al’s dad. They travel a lot. Al kinda takes care of the place when she’s here. She’s been living up there, on and off for, years.”

Belen swung back and forth her boots scraping in the grass and dirt.

“That stupid binder is like her broken crown. Full of her highs and lows. Especially the lows. She loves it like… I don’t fucking know what!” Belen sniffed and looked away. “Did you look at it?”

“Ahhh…” Alicia tried to answer; wanted to lie.

“It’s alright,” Belen said softly. “Sometimes I think she leaves it out hoping someone will pick it up and run away with it like a football and somehow that will take away all her pain.” She sniffed again and Alicia could see tears on her cheeks. “I called her that when we were kids: Reckless. She was fearless! Absolutely fearless, and I loved her with everything I was.” Belen swiped at her cheeks and Alicia felt her pain like a kick in the gut.

Reaching out Alicia took Belen’s hand and held it tight. “You still love her,” Alicia stated not accusing or jealous, a simple statement of fact.

“Yes. You get it?”

“Yeah, I get it.”

Belen looked at their hands. “I don’t deserve your kindness…”

“Yes, you do. Everyone deserves kindness. It’s the least I can do.” Alicia swung their clasped hands back and forth and Belen kicked out and they swung back and forth on the swing set together.

“Al needs you,” Belen finally said. “She needs your kindness, your understanding. She needs to tell you her stories herself. I just hope she doesn’t do to you what she’s done to every other girl. That stuff in the back of that book, that damn…” Belen’s face worked through anger again. “She’s never told anyone but me and she didn’t have to cause I was there.”

Releasing Alicia’s hand, Belen hopped off the swing.

“C’mon,” I’ll drive you home.”

Alicia didn’t move.

“What did she do to every other girl?” Alicia asked softly already dreading the answer.

Belen looked at Alicia then away again. There was a long pause.

“Run away. She ran away before any of them could get too close,” she said and nothing more.


	4. A Better Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “No one has ever fought for me. No one has ever tried to stop me when I walked out the door.”

Detective Jimenez was sitting in her car in the no-parking zone in front of the library when Alicia came out five minutes after her shift ended. Seeing her approaching the passenger side, the detective unlocked the door and pulled her leather briefcase from the passenger seat.

Alicia got in and glanced at the back seat.

“Al was at the station already this morning and signed her statement,” Jimenez said as if reading Alicia’s thoughts.

Alicia didn’t say anything and tried to hide her disappointment. She hadn’t heard from Al today despite texting her in the morning before going to work. She settled into the car seat and clicked on the seat belt. The car smelled like coffee and a subtle scent that might be the other woman’s cologne or hair product.

Jimenez drove with her left hand; wrist hanging over the steering wheel. She wore aviator shades that Alicia though gave her a cool, confident _‘don’t mess with me’_ sort of vibe, dark pants and a white, short sleeved blouse. Clipped to her belt was a holstered handgun. It was hard not to see the appeal Al had so flippantly and truthfully admitted.

“So, how did you get mixed up with Althea and her stalker?” Jimenez asked when they stopped at a traffic light.

“I met Al at a coffee shop,” Alicia started. When the detective looked at her skeptically, Alicia continued. “She asked me out, we went to a club and back to her place. I think I told you some of this…”

“You did. Including the part where you two were making out when the stalker appeared.”

Alicia gave a little shrug.

“Not everyone would’ve admitted that part. You could’ve said you were making coffee or something.”

“I’m not everyone, and the truth doesn’t embarrass me or whatever it was you were expecting.”

Jimenez glanced at Alicia then back at the road. “I guess you’re not like everyone.”

Alicia sensed an under tone to the words. “I suppose you’re going to warn me off Al too?”

The detective pulled the car into a parking slot at the back of the police station and turned off the engine. Looking at Alicia she removed her sunglasses. “It’s not my business to try to give you advice about your love life,” she said her gaze on Alicia serious. “What I will say is that Althea has a reputation for taking risks. Risks that in her line of work can get a reporter injured or even killed. When I first met her, she was trying to interview gang members in south LA. I put her together in a patrol car with Yarborough thinking that would keep her safe. Al thinks _‘stay in the car’_ doesn’t apply to her. She’s reckless. Don’t get caught up in that.”

Jimenez exited the car and Alicia followed her into the police station. She waited, sitting primly her hands between her knees next to the detective’s desk while Jimenez gathered enough people for a lineup.

No one was paying her any attention so Alicia glanced at the pictures pinned to the cubical wall behind the computer screen. There was a picture of Jimenez and a Latino man Alicia assumed was her husband and individual pictures of three children, a girl and two boys.

On the desk, dropped carelessly, was an open file folder with only a couple paper napkins covering the side with the typed report. Alicia reached out and gave one of the napkins a nudge exposing some of the text. When she saw her own name and then that of Al’s with the hyphenated last names, she leaned a little closer.

Stan was being charged with attempted murder, reckless endangerment, possession of an unregistered firearm…

Alicia didn’t get to read anymore as Jimenez was approaching. The detective swiped the napkins off the file and flipped it closed. “Let’s go, we’re ready,” she said.

What Alicia would remember most clearly from the lineup was that everyone on the other side of the glass looked sketchy, but only Stan looked sad. The identification was easy. Once that was done, they went back to the detective’s desk where Jimenez had Alicia go over her statement and sign it.

“Can I see her?” Alicia asked handing the paper back.

Jimenez’s dark brows drew together in a look of surprise and concern. “Why would you want to do that?”

“I don’t know, really,” Alicia said truthfully. “I guess maybe, a part of me wants to tell her I’m not mad at her and that I hope she gets some help or whatever…” Alicia could feel her cheeks warming with something like embarrassment.

Jimenez stared at Alicia for a long moment before getting up. “I’ll go see if she’s been transferred yet.”

About five minutes went by before the detective returned. Five minutes of Alicia wondering what she was going to say to Stan or even what she had been thinking requesting to see her.

“I’m going to go in with you,” Jimenez said when they stopped outside an interview room. “I will haul you out of there if you provoke her. Understand?” Alicia nodded and they entered the room.

Stan was sitting in a metal chair pulled up to the table that took up most of the center of the room. She had cuffs on her wrists that were attached by a chain that passed through a bar welded to the table. She sat with her face out of sight, forehead resting on one arm.

Alicia pulled a chair up to the other side of the table and sat down. Now that she was here, in front of Stan, she couldn’t think of what to say. As the silence continued, Stan finally raised her head enough to look at Alicia through a curtain of long bangs hanging in front of her eyes.

“You’re Al’s girlfriend,” Stan stated. Lowering her head back on her arm she said nothing else.

“I am… at least sort of,” Alicia said uncertainly. She was beginning to think this had been a bad idea. In the corner of the room, Jimenez shifted slightly and re-crossed her arms over her chest.

“Sort of?” Stan repeated barely audible then raised her head. “You were kissing her!”

That the young woman across from her had bright blue eyes was what Alicia would remember most vividly. Still half hidden under hair a reddish blond and cut not unlike Al wore hers, those eyes were now bright and wet with tears. She wasn’t menacing; in fact, Alicia found her almost innocent in a sad, disheveled way.

“Do you know how much I would give to be you? To be kissing Al like you were? Feeling her hands on me like they were on you? Knowing that soon those hands and that mouth would be giving me what want more than anything I’ve ever wanted?” At the end of this statement she huffed out a breath full of an aching sexual longing that made Alicia flash back to that morning in Al’s apartment when she had first thrown her leg over the sleeping Al and felt her warm body under her hands and then her sleepy mouth under hers. Alicia had felt the same nearly painful desire as the woman across the table did; felt it now in her chest and in her groin.

“I…” Alicia didn’t know what to say.

“Doesn’t matter,” Stan sat back, tears now on her cheeks, she looked away from Alicia. “She never even noticed me. Never looked at me and that nearly killed me. All I ever wanted was her to maybe smile at me…”

Alicia didn’t think this was true given her earlier words. Words laced with so much sexual tension.

“All the girls she looks at, all the girls she kisses, just never me. I don’t care about anything anymore.” Stan flopped forward again her head down as she sniffled.

Alicia stared at the top of Stan’s head thinking this would be a good time to get up and leave, yet something held her back.

Reaching forward she laid her hand over one of the woman’s balled fists. “I’m sorry you’re going through all this. I’m sorry you’re feeling such pain,” Alicia paused, squeezed Stan’s hand harder. “Someday this will be over. Someday all this will be behind you. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”

Letting go of the woman’s hand, Alicia got up and went to the door. Just as she was about to pass through followed by Jimenez, a soft voice spoke behind them.

“Please tell her I said hi.”

Outside in the hall, Alicia leaned against the wall for support and lowered herself down until her hands were resting on her knees. Breathing deeply, she felt Jimenez touch her shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

Alicia looked up, met the detective’s dark eyes. “Yeah, I’m OK.” Letting out a last deep breath she stood straight. “She’s not crazy, you know,” Alicia told Jimenez. “She’s in love. Hopeless love and I’m starting to understand how that feels.”

They were back in the car and pulling up to the house where Alicia lived, before Jimenez said anything else. “She doesn’t deserve your kindness. She told me she would have shot you…”

“Everyone deserves kindness in some measure or another,” Alicia said flatly. “I’m tired of people trying to tell me not everyone is worthy of understanding and compassion.”

When Alicia went to get out of the car Jimenez caught her arm. “I envy you your empathy, Alicia.”

“My super power.” Alicia felt a tear at the corner of her eye, swiped at it. “I can only ever use it for good, unfortunately.”

Jimenez laughed softly. “Thank you for what you did today. That girl might not know it, but it mattered.”

With a nod, Alicia got out of the car.

**Later**

Alicia was sitting on a lounge chair in the backyard of her shared house when Al finally texted her back. The evening was warm and outside was more comfortable than in the house right now despite the house having air conditioning. Alicia had been laying back in the chair, eyes closed, phone resting on her chest as she listened to the familiar sounds of the neighbourhood: a barking dog, someone’s lawn mower, children laughing, car doors slamming.

When her phoned chimed the text notification she didn’t look at it right away. Eventually her curiosity got the better of her.

In response to Alicia’s text of _‘I asked to see Stan when I was at the police station’_. Al had replied with one word.

_Why?_

Alicia thought for a long time before replying.

_I don’t really know. It was just something I felt I needed to do. How are you? I was beginning to get worried about you when you didn’t answer me. _

The response was a long time coming, so long that Alicia was beginning to get annoyed.

_I’m good. I’m just tired_ ☹ _and I can__’t be I have an interview I have to do and it will lead to more if I_ _can get her to open up this time._

_Don’t tell me it’s earnest woman from the coffee shop??_

_Yeah, her._

_When can I see you again?_

Alicia considered adding _‘and take up where we left off’_ to that text but decided not to. The answer was a long time coming and when she read it, Alicia felt like throwing her phone into the hedge at the back of the yard.

_I dunno. Things are looking to be really busy this week. _

When she didn’t throw her phone just held it tight in her hand, Alicia thought of all the things she could say back to Al. Things like _‘whatever’_ and _‘you really are what everyone says you are, aren’t you?’_. In the end she just typed a simple _‘OK’_.

**Three Days Later**

Alicia carried her tray across the cafeteria on the bottom floor of the library. There were still plenty of people around even though, like for her, classes had ended and the summer break had begun three weeks ago.

Alicia flipped through a brochure entitled _‘What to do if you are pregnant’_ someone had left on the table before pushing it aside. She was thinking maybe she should go back to dating boys when a voice from the flat screen TV hanging in the corner caught her attention.

Looking up she saw Earnest Woman surrounded by a crowd of people holding placards. The headline below the image read ‘March about to start downtown’. Alicia watched, not overly interested until the camera angle widened and she caught a glimpse of Al at the edge of the crowd looking down at the screen of the small video camera she was holding.

She didn’t feel relieved. _Yes,_ she told the vindictive part of herself, _Al really was busy doing her reporter work but really, did she not have time to return a simple text? _

Pushing aside the rest of her salad, Alicia scrubbed her hands over her face. There were so many things she wanted to say to Al not the least of which was _what the fuck?_ There had been a real connection between them. A connection that had left Alicia feeling she wanted more. Had Al not felt that? It had seemed to Alicia that she did. If so, what was the matter with her?

Alicia pulled her phone from her pocket and set it on the table in front of her. After a few minutes had passed and she felt herself calming, she picked it up and scrolled through her text messages with Al.

There had been one response from Al yesterday to Alicia’s questioning her about her wound.

_It’s OK, I’ve been so busy I haven’t thought about it much. _

_Haven’t thought about me much,_ might also work, Alicia thought.

The cursor on her phone was blinking in the small box at the bottom the screen next to the words Enter Message.

Thinking about it for just a minute, Alicia typed.

_I’m seeing you on TV. Not how I expected to see you again._

When there was no response, Alicia wasn’t at all surprised.

**Much later**

Alicia woke up needing to use the bathroom. Taking her phone with her she squinted at the screen while sitting on the toilet in the dark. One of the icons, the one for a text message, sat below the always-on time display on the otherwise dark screen. Making sure the bathroom door was shut, she turned on the light, flushed and washed her hands. Clicking the power button, she swiped until she got to messages.

The message had a 951 Los Angeles area code but the rest of it she didn’t know. Clicking it open, she read.

_Hey, this is Belen. I grabbed Al’s phone when she wasn’t looking and looked at your text messages. I can see she’s blowing you off and I don’t know why. I can tell she likes you…_

_She's been in a mood all week. Avoiding you and me and anything not connected with that stupid camera of hers. She’s pissing me off big time. I talked to her and convinced her to play with me at a thing tonight at Ofelia’s. _

_I want you to come. Al’s sorry ass will be there because I will drag her there if I have to. It’s an LGBT thing so wear something rainbow or whatever. I’m sorry I looked at your texts. I hope you can forgive me for that. LMK. Belen ………_

Alicia put her phone down beside the sink, gave her head a shake, picked it up again and began typing out a reply.

_Hi, Belen. Thank you I guess_ 😊 _Yes I think she’s blowing me off and honestly if I wasn’t so pissed I’d be_ _hurt. OK, I am hurt. Really hurt cause I really like her and I think she likes me. You scared me with what you said about her running away and I feel…_

_…I should throw away my phone and not think about her anymore but I can’t. It’s like she’s all I can think about and I’m not giving up. I have to work until seven tomorrow. When does it start?_

Alicia didn’t sleep very much the rest of that night. In the morning when there was no reply from Belen, she packed a small bag with clothes she could wear to Ofelia’s. She could change at work and leave her other clothes in her locker. Looking at what she had laid out she smiled. Black skinny jeans with a thicker heavier belt than she had worn before, a black sports bra, a loose light blue tank top and her Converse sneakers. Spotting her LA Dodgers ball cap on the shelf above her bed, she threw that in as well.

The weather report called for a hot day. Alicia was expecting a hot evening – one way or the other.

**Evening, same day**

The band was already playing when Alicia walked down the alley to the back of Ofelia’s. Belen had responded to her text telling her that if she arrived late (which she knew she would) she could tell Daniel the doorman that Belen was expecting her.

A man was standing by the gate. He wasn’t big, but he was imposing none the least. Alicia smiled when she walked up to him.

“Hi Daniel. I’m Alicia. I think Belen told you I was coming?”

“Yes, Alicia,” Daniel said and swung open the little gate. Taking her hand in both of his he smiled at her warmly. “Happy Pride or whatever it is they say. Help yourself to the food,” he gestured to a long table behind him. When Alicia tried to say something about a cover charge, he just smiled and told her not to worry.

Keeping to the far side away from the stage, Alicia went towards the buffet table. The space was as she remembered it except for the addition of little rainbow flags scattered around among the Clematis, and along the food table. Taking a quick look over her shoulder, Alicia spotted Al on stage to Belen’s left playing acoustic guitar. There were more band members, all of them women including a keyboardist, fiddle player and accordionist to go along with another guitar, bass and drums.

Similar to the last time she had been here, Belen was singing a mid-tempo folk song in Spanish. As Alicia placed a fish taco and bit of salad and rice on her plate she looked around at the people. All of the tables were occupied either by people or by their empty plates and belongings, so she moved to the back where several others were standing. Most of the dancers on the dance floor were young male and female couples except the older couple Alicia had seen before. They didn’t look out of place; just another happy couple dancing to the music.

Al half sat on a stool picking out the lead guitar part of the song her face tight with concentration. When Belen sang in Spanish, Alicia translated in her head. _“No one like you, takes me to the edge of despair, no one like you…”_ The lyrics seemed very fitting for how she thought about Al, Alicia thought. Putting her plate aside, Alicia looked up and could tell Belen had spotted her.

After that song, Al switched her acoustic for an electric. Hitting a foot pedal in front of her, Al nodded at Belen. When they began to play Mary Chapin Carpenter’s _Down at the Twist and Shout_, the three young men just in front of Alicia hooted in delight and two of them immediately headed to the dance floor. The boy remaining looked around and, seeing Alicia by herself, held out his hand with a smile.

Alicia accepted graciously and they began a fast two-step around the floor. Alicia found out quickly her partner was an excellent dancer and better lead. When they danced past his two friends, her young man stuck out his tongue at them. Swinging Alicia around and dipping her, it was clear who the better dancers were.

Stealing glances at the stage, Alicia was impressed by Al’s finger work on the lead solo and how her voice when she sang backing vocals to Belen blended perfectly. With barely a pause, they started another Cajun inspired tune this time with Al taking the lead vocal. Alicia and her partner continued their two-step and, as they swung past the stage. Alicia had the distinct feeling Al’s eyes were on her back.

After another lively tune, Alicia was working up both a sweat and a thirst. As she and her partner headed off the dance floor when Belen and her band moved into a slower tempo country song, Alicia caught Ofelia’s eye and mimed drinking a beer. Ofelia nodded and after a few minutes was back with a cold bottle of Tecate. Leaning close to Alicia, Ofelia kissed her on the cheek and whispered in her ear.

“It’s good to see you again, Alicia. Don’t worry about the beer. It’s on Belen’s tab.” Ofelia looked over her shoulder at the stage then back at Alicia. “Al is here…”

Alicia smiled and nodded. “Yes, she is.”

Ofelia gave Alicia a look she couldn’t decipher, and moved off through the tables.

Drinking cold beer, Alicia looked up and found Al looking at her directly. Alicia neither smiled nor acknowledged Al in any other way, just drank her beer and played it cool.

Once the song was over, Al switched guitars again and spoke to Belen out of range of the microphones. Belen nodded and Al stepped up to the center mike while Belen spoke to the rest of the band. The song Al had picked was _If I Die Young_ and she sang with a passion that had even Belen looking at her with surprise and respect.

Listening to Al sing with her high, sweet voice, Alicia felt her throat tighten. The boys standing beside her had ordered shots of tequila, so when they offered her one, Alicia accepted gratefully. Reaching the chorus, Belen’s voice met Al’s in a perfect harmony. The last time through the chorus the boys joined in singing along with most of the crowd.

As the song ended, Al moved close to Belen her back to the crowd. Whatever it was Al said had Belen looking at Al concerned. “I’m going to switch it up,” Alicia heard Al say. “Just follow me, OK, Izzy?”

Belen nodded and looked up her eyes finding Alicia’s. While Belen was turned around to let the band know what they would be playing next, Alicia watched Al swallow a shot of something obviously alcoholic by the grimace she made, and step up to the mike.

As they began to play, Alicia recognized the Taylor Swift song that had been recorded by a country band. And Al _was_ switching it up. The pronouns were reversed and the perspective was no longer first person singing about someone else. When she got to the chorus Belen had a hard time following until Al sang _“And I just miss you and I just wish I was a better girl.”_

Alicia felt frozen to the spot when Al began the second verse and focused her full attention on her. When Alicia tore her eyes away from Al for just a second, she looked at Belen. The other woman played her guitar and watched Al with an expression that Alicia thought was a cross between anger, admiration and an aching pain.

_I know you’re probably better off all alone than needing a girl who could change her mind at any given minute. And it's always on my terms, you’re hanging on every careless word, hoping it might turn sweet again, like it was in the beginning. _

The next time through the chorus went smoother with Belen and another of the band joining Al’s voice in harmony. Al was in a zone all on her own and, watching her sing, Alicia was drawn in feeling her pain and longing.

_I wish I was a better girl_ _, I wonder what we would've become, if I was a better girl, I might be in love,  
if I was a better girl, you could've been the one, if I was a better girl._

There was no one else right there in that moment. Just Al, closing her eyes as she sang. When she opened them again at the chorus, Alicia was sure she saw a single tear run down her cheek and drop from her chin.

The song ended and Al stepped back slowly. Slipping out of the strap, Al placed the guitar carefully on a stand and, with an unreadable look at Belen, left the stage. Belen made a quick announcement about taking a break and followed Al off the stage and into the building. Still in shock from Al’s singing, Alicia followed behind.

Belen was in full fury when Alicia entered the hallway to the kitchen. Staying back out of sight, and out of range of Belen’s rage, Alicia listened.

“What in the actual fuck was that, Al? What were you thinking singing that?” This was followed by a string of rapid Spanish Alicia thought was mainly curse words. Alicia thought Belen was complaining about the music right up until her next words.

“What is wrong with you, Al? She’s good for you! Damn good, and you’re too goddamn stupid to realize it!”

“I can’t,” Alicia heard Al say softly. “I ruin everything, everyone I’m around. You know that, Izzy…”

“Stop talking to me like we’re stupid seventeen-year-old kids!”

There was a crash and rattle of stainless-steel pots and pans. Alicia peeked around from where she was near the connecting hall to the washrooms. Belen had Al by the collars of her shirt and up against the table in the middle of the kitchen. If there was anyone else in there, Alicia couldn’t see them.

“What’s done is done! Your brother is dead and no matter how much you blame yourself and whine and complain about how awful of a person you are, that’s never going to change. What needs to change is you! Why the hell can’t you see that?!” Belen pushed Al away and there was more clanging and rattling of cookware.

After a minute, Belen spoke more softly. “I love you, Al. You know I will always be here for you.”

Al’s reply was too soft for Alicia to hear but she guessed it was _‘I know’_.

“No matter what you do, I will always be your friend. But, please, Al! Just for once can you open your damn eyes and see what’s right in front of you!”

Al mumbled something Alicia didn’t catch.

“Because I asked her,” Belen replied. “You weren’t going to. You just thought you’d ignore her and she would go away like all the rest. Then you decide to get all dramatic and sing that song. You know what, Al? I wish you were a better girl too. Because a better girl would see what’s right in front of her and for once in her life she’d try. Try to let someone who cares more than anyone else ever has into her heart and finally accept that she’s worth caring about.”

“I’m not…” Al said weakly.

“The hell you’re not!” If anything, Belen’s fury was even stronger. “It’s not for you to decide who she loves! If she thinks it could be you, you need to just stop with your bullshit and believe – really believe – that it’s worth it to try. That you are worth it.”

There was silence until Alicia heard heavy footsteps coming from the kitchen. Ducking out of sight, Alicia watched Belen pass by, her face a mask of anger.

After a couple of minutes, Alicia heard softer footsteps approaching and, when Al appeared, she did something that surprised them both.

Alicia grabbed Al and pushed her up against the wall; flipped her Dodgers ball cap backwards so she could get right up in Al’s face. One hand of Alicia’s held one hand of Al’s up by her head while Alicia’s other hand was at Al’s waist. And Alicia kissed her. Deeply, hungrily, kissed her. Al responded kissing Alicia back with just as much passion and Alicia pressed a knee into Al to hold her up as Al’s legs seemed in danger of collapsing under her.

Finally breaking the kiss, both of them breathless, Alicia pulled back slowly.

“Hey girl,” Alicia said cheerfully. “Got a minute to talk?”

Al blinked. Swallowed hard.

“You do remember me, right?” Alicia pushed her groin harder against Al. “Do you want me to kiss you again to help with your memory?”

Al licked her lips, swallowed again, and nodded.

Alicia moved in slowly; backed off when Al pressed forward to meet her. With a little smile, her eyes holding Al pinned as much as her body was, Alicia finally closed the short distance between their lips. This time the kiss was slower and more sensual with Alicia in full control. Alicia didn’t pull back this time when she separated her mouth from Al’s, just trailed her lips along Al’s jawline to her ear.

Al made something like a squeak of longing her free hand now in Alicia’s hair.

“Do you really want to throw this away, girl? Do you really believe I think you’re not worth it?” Alicia whispered directly in Al’s ear. “Maybe you _should_ try to be a better girl, because only a dumb girl would refuse what I have to give you.”

Alicia leaned back and, letting Al’s hand go, gripped the collars of her shirt. When Al tried to look away, Alicia pulled her face back level with hers.

“Alicia, I…” Al couldn’t continue.

“I don’t know your, past Al. Maybe sometime you will tell me, it doesn’t really matter. What matters to me is what I feel right here and right now. And what_ you_ feel right here and right now and you damn well can’t deny this.”

Al closed her eyes and drew in a ragged breath. Gently smoothing the fringe of hair back from Al’s face, Alicia spoke more softly, but just as urgently. “I’ve never felt anything like this and if you think I’m letting it go – well, that’s just nuts!”

Then Al did something unexpected that Alicia felt not in her groin or in her mind – in her heart. Pushing her face into Alicia’s shoulder, she wrapped her arms around the other woman’s body and held on tightly.

Alicia felt her tremble just slightly. “I got you. It’s alright,” Alicia said tenderly her hand in Al’s hair at the back of her head. “I got you, Reckless Al.”

After a minute or so Alicia heard Al sniff, felt her turn her head slightly against her shoulder.

“No one has ever fought for me. No one has ever tried to stop me when I walked out the door. I figured it just wasn’t worth it to try.”

“I’m not just anyone,” Alicia stroked her fingers through Al’s hair. “As for if I’m worth it, well that might be up to you, but in my opinion I sure as hell am.”

Al laughed slightly, sniffed again.

There was a slight scuff from the hallway that led outside and Alicia saw Belen standing there. Still holding Al, Alicia gave the other woman and short nod.

Belen cleared her throat loudly. “There’s a crowd out here expecting some music and my band needs a lead guitar player. You guys know anyone that can handle that job?”

Al pushed away from Alicia and gave her a sardonic smile.

“Seems you’re needed,” Alicia told Al.

“Yes, it does.” Leaning in to Alicia, Al gave her a quick kiss followed by what Alicia thought of as a ‘significant look.’

Turning away, Al passed Belen in the hall and then headed back outside. Belen caught up to her with Alicia trailing behind.

“Have you got all that angst worked out?” Belen asked Al.

“Nope,” Al hopped up on the stage. “I got lots left and I need it.” Almost ripping at the buttons, Al took off her long sleeve shirt and whipped it aside. Underneath she wore a tight grey sleeveless shirt and, when she turned toward Belen and slipped her electric guitar strap over her head, Alicia got a glimpse of the scar on her left upper arm.

“I think it’s time to rock!” Al said into the microphone. The crowd left at Ofelia’s cheered in response to this and Al looked them over. “Yeah, I thought so. Sure, smells like angst to me.” Looking back at Belen with her electric guitar and then the remainder of the band: another guitarist, a keyboard player, and the bass player and drummer, Al nodded and said something Alicia didn’t hear.

Turning a couple of dials on her guitar and hitting the foot pedal, Al grinned at Alicia and strummed out the opening chords to Nirvana’s _Smells Like Teen Spirit_. The drummer came in right on cue with the other two joining in to create a wall of sound across the courtyard.

Alicia moved around to the front of the stage and was immediately engulfed in a mosh-pit atmosphere. The three boys were beside her again and now she recognized several of the younger women from the club she and Al had gone to on their date.

With hardly a pause in between, Al, Belen and the band cycled through a playlist of hard rock, mostly female driven songs, by groups like Garbage, The Breeders, Evanescence and Veruca Salt. To say it was high energy was an understatement. Alicia found herself caught up in it all; feeling like she had when she was fifteen and had gone to a Nine Inch Nails concert with her brother. Only the crowd was a bit more friendly.

As the band played _Just a Girl_ by No Doubt, Alicia felt someone touch her waist as a body moved close behind her. Looking over her shoulder she was surprised to see Sergeant Yarborough, grubby Angels ball cap on her head, frayed overalls over a white sports bra and Doc Marten boots on her feet, smiling back at her.

“Girl knows how to rock!” Yarborough said in Alicia’s ear. “Hope she’s not popping her stitches.”

Alicia had been keeping a close eye on Al’s side. When Al moved a certain way, Alicia could see the flash of a bandage under her shirt but she wasn’t dripping blood or anything obvious. Handing Alicia another beer the two women stood side by side and watched as Al and Belen finally stepped back as they finished the song. Al wiped her face with a towel and tossed it at Belen.

“Yer getting to old for this, chica!” Yarborough shouted at Belen.

“Look who’s here! You know it’s not a party until the LAPD shows up!” Belen retorted. “You gonna arrest me?”

“Oh, hell no!” Yarborough yelled. “You don’t need any more crimes and misdemeanors on your record. Besides, you and I have already done the dirty in the back of my patrol car how many times is it?”

“Oh, do tell!” Al spoke into her mike, eyes on Belen. 

Belen flashed them each the finger as she picked up her acoustic guitar. “We need to finish up before the real cops show up and give Ofelia a ticket.” Belen looked at Al. “_What’s Up_, Al? You got this?”

Al fiddled with a couple controls on her electric and paused to rub her left arm over the scar. “Nah,” she told Belen. “I’ll just sit up her and watch Sergeant Smart Ass swoon when you sing it to her!”

Watching Yarborough as Belen sang _What’s Up_ by 4 Non Blondes, Alicia wondered if she wasn’t swooning maybe just a bit. With everyone around her singing the chorus, Alicia found herself almost overwhelmed emotionally. Watching Al, she felt something else too, when Al flashed her easy grin her way. Once the music finally ended Alicia found a table and sat down. Yarborough sat beside her fanning herself dramatically.

“Yer still hot, chica! Still hot!” she shouted at Belen.

Belen just gave her the finger again.

**A bit later**

Most of the band’s gear had been packed up and Alicia took a bathroom break. When she returned to the courtyard, Al, Belen, a couple members of the band along with Ofelia and Daniel as well as Sergeant Yarborough were sitting at several joined tables in a big group. Al was munching on a huge plate of nachos, Alicia’s Dodgers cap on her head. Alicia hadn’t realized she’d lost it.

Belen was sitting beside Al so, as she approached, Alicia gave the other woman a stern look. Belen vacated the seat and Alicia plunked down beside Al and draped an arm possessively over Al’s shoulders. Al paused to take a drink of beer so Alicia pushed the nachos back toward the center of the table.

“Sarah says the Dodgers suck, Alicia. Go punch her for me.” Al hooked a finger on the plate and pulled the nachos closer again and away from the others.

“How many times have they been in the playoffs now, and lost?” Yarborough argued.

Alicia tuned out the baseball discussion and directed her attention at Al. She looked amazingly cute in the ball cap and Alicia really, really wanted to get her alone anywhere, just alone.

“Can we…?” Alicia leaned close to Al.

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking,” Al turned her full attention on Alicia. Her eyes were still bright with the energy the music had given her. “Can you get some time off work? Like a couple of days? Three or four, maybe?” Al was almost babbling as she looked at Alicia expectantly and even somewhat nervously.

“I think so,” Alicia studied Al wondering what could make her feel so anxious.

“I was going to go up north, just get away for a few days. My friend has a cabin up in Big Sur… I was going to go myself but…”

“Are you asking me to go with you?” Alicia said slowly.

Al looked at Alicia from under the brim of the cap her expression almost shy. “Yeah, maybe it can be our second date?”

*****

I was inspired by Griss Romero for the Spanish music the characters play in this chapter and previously in chapter 2. Check her out. She's great! _If I Die Young_ is by The Band Perry. _A Better Man_ is a song written by Taylor Swift and performed and recorded by Little Big Town


	5. Big Sur

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You reacted in a way no one has ever reacted to me before. It was raw…”

**A Day Later **

Al was already at the curb on her motorcycle.

Alicia exited the house in the pre-dawn dark carrying her backpack. Al was off the bike and had pulled off her helmet. “I told you not to bring too much,” Al said looking at the backpack Alicia carried.

“You gave me a very detailed list and that’s what I have,” Alicia plunked the backpack down on the motorcycle’s seat. Alicia peered in the saddlebags when Al opened them and pulled out another motorcycle jacket, gloves and heavy boots for her.

“Are you looking for the sex toys?” Al smirked.

Alicia gave her a look as she unloaded most of the contents of her bag into the saddle bags. “Why? Did you forget them?” Pulling on the jacket, Alicia gave Al her own smirk right back. “Don’t worry, I’ve got my strap-on.”

When Al’s eyes widened and dropped immediately to her crotch, Alicia tossed a sneaker at her.

Al proved to be an expert with bungee cords and Alicia was able to mount the bike behind Al free of the backpack which was attached to the rear rack. Al fiddled with her cell phone in the clear pocket of her tank bag and Alicia heard Al’s voice inside her helmet.

“Intercom system,” Al said. “Also good for music. I’ll start a playlist once we are pretty well out of the city.” Al reached back and, taking Alicia’s hand placed it on her waist. “Keep your hands on me.”

“Oh, really?” Alicia said as Al started the bike and pulled smoothly from the curb. “I was hoping another cute girl might come along I could get my hands on.”

Al just laughed.

Joining Highway 1 at Malibu, Al started a playlist and Alicia wasn’t surprised when the first song was _Malibu_ by Miley Cyrus. She kept her hands at Al’s waist. With one hand she hooked her fingers under Al’s belt close to the belt buckle in the front. The other she rested on Al’s thigh occasionally stroking her fingers along Al’s leg coming very close to her crotch.

“I always thought Gabrielle riding behind Xena on the horse was very sexy,” Alicia commented at one point. Along a particularly beautiful stretch of coastline with the sun coming up behind the hills on their right, Alicia tossed out another comment; this one more of a question. “Can we pull over and make out?”

“What_ is_ on your mind this morning?” Al asked tilting her head just a bit to get a glimpse at Alicia.

“I’m on a totally cool bike with a super hot girl. What did you expect?”

“Vibration getting to you?”

“Yeah, that too.”

North of Santa Barbara where the highway swung inland, they pulled over for a late breakfast at a diner off the road. A group of sport bikes were parked near the front of the restaurant and Al pulled in beside them. Holding on to Al’s shoulders, Alicia carefully dismounted. She could feel the eyes of a couple of the riders on her as she slipped her head out of her helmet and shook out her hair.

“Nice ride, dude,” a guy standing next to a Kawasaki Ninja directed at Al who was still seated with her helmet on. Al swung her leg over her bike and pulled off her helmet. Sweeping her hair out of her eyes, Al looked at the guy then at the girl standing just behind him. The tall girl wore form fitting leathers, tall boots with multiple buckles and a stylish bandana around her neck. Her hair was short and a soft red and her eyes were bright blue.

“Yours too,” Al returned, her eyes on the girl.

Alicia bit her lip trying not to laugh. They guy didn’t get Al’s double meaning but the girl did. A slow smile played across her lips as she looked from Al to Alicia placing her helmet not on the guy’s bike but the Ducati beside it.

“Moto Guzzi V7 III Stone,” the guy said looking at Al’s bike. The next couple minutes were taken up by a discussion of horsepower and other things Alicia wasn’t interested in, and the guy probably didn’t realize Al was bending into sexual innuendos.

Exiting the bathroom, Alicia met the redhead in the narrow hallway.

“You don’t ride?” the girl asked.

“Not yet,” Alicia threw over her shoulder. “Maybe when we get where we’re going this afternoon. If my ass isn’t too sore and my girl isn’t too tired!”

The girl just laughed.

Alicia found a table outside away from the other riders. Al joined her after taking her own bathroom break. “You like redheads?” Alicia asked, sipping orange juice.

Al met her eye and grinned. “And blondes, and brunettes.”

Alicia looked over her glass at the girl across the outdoor patio. She was the only woman with the group of guys. “She’s gorgeous.”

“Amen to that,” Al said and drank her coffee.

**Later**

They had stopped for lunch in San Luis Obispo Al finding an authentic Mexican place in the historic district. The bike was backed into the curb just beside them as they sat sipping beer at an outdoor table.

“I could get used to this,” Alicia said. “Being here with you, on your bike, having fun.”

Al looked up from her tacos and took in the serious look on Alicia’s face. Swallowing beer, Al’s eyes never left Alicia’s. “I get it,” she said softly.

“Good,” Alicia told her. “Because I don’t know how to make it any plainer.”

**Later Still**

The day was slipping into afternoon when, for the last time before they swung inland closer to their destination, the highway hugged the coastline.

Alicia wrapped her arms all the way around Al’s waist and laid the side of her head on Al’s back.

“Getting tired?”

“Nope,” Alicia answered. “I’m just imagining us in our own music video.”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah. Sweeping vistas shot by a drone from above. Images of you and me smiling at each other with the ocean behind us slipping into me making love to you on a beach with the sunset behind us.”

“Ahhhh…” was all Al managed to say.

Alicia laughed. “What’s the matter? Speechless, Reckless? I told you, pull over any time.”

“Well, my ass is getting a bit sore…”

A few minutes later Al found a lookoff on the ocean side to pull into. Taking off their helmets they stood next to the cliff guardrail.

“Selfie time! Turn around!” Alicia set up the picture with them sitting on the guardrail their backs to the ocean, Al’s arm flopped carelessly over her shoulder and her own hand on Al’s thigh. Al went back to the bike and dug around in the saddlebags while Alicia flipped through the pictures looking for the best one. Finding one where Al’s face held a sardonic smile and she was looking at Al with a happy grin, she looked up at the other woman.

“Are you OK with me posting this? I can tag you in it.”

Al held a Nikon D7200 digital SLR camera. Alicia hadn’t realized she had been taking pictures while she wasn’t looking.

“I’m not on social media.” Al moved in beside Alicia on the guardrail again, looked at the pic on Alicia’s phone and smiled. “Is this Insta-whatever?”

“Yeah, I already found Belen when I was looking for you,” Alicia held up her phone for Al to see the picture of the tall singer in sunglasses and a large western style hat with her acoustic guitar over her shoulder.

“That’s, like, her work account, let me see,” Al held out her hand for Alicia’s phone. “She has another account. More personal.” Al started typing, kept typing. “She’s like Jimenez: she has like sixteen names.” Al handed the phone back to Alicia. On the screen was a more candid pic of Belen. One of her names was McMurray. “She had an Anglo grandfather. That’s where she gets her kinda white girl looks from.”

Alicia hit follow on the account and went back to the pic of her and Al. “OK if I…?”

“Sure,” Al went back to her camera and Alicia clicked on ‘post’.

When they stopped again at a small store in the town before Big Sur, Alicia checked her phone while waiting for her turn in the single women’s bathroom. Shameless Al was in the men’s. Belen had followed her back and added a comment on her pic _“My two hotties.”_ She had also gone back through Alicia’s pictures and liked a bunch of them. Alicia just smiled.

Alicia met Al outside by the motorcycle. Al was stuffing bottles of wine and other alcohol in the saddlebags. On the back rack, a case of Corona was already bungeed into place. Alicia raised an eyebrow.

“My friend said we can stay at her place as long as we don’t drink all her booze.”

A few more minutes down the road, Al turned left onto a side road. They wound through lush redwood forest damp from an afternoon shower. Another side road took them closer to the ocean and Al pulled into a driveway blocked by a stone wall with an iron gate. Al motioned for Alicia to dismount and went to the gate to key in a security code. The driveway was relatively short so Alicia walked in while Al drove the bike.

The cottage, if you could call it that, sat on the cliff with the forest right up against the back of it. To the right, Al was keying in another code to open a garage door. Alicia stood gaping, she wasn’t ashamed to say, in the middle of a smooth paved area in front of the stained wood and arched roofed building.

“Al! Whose fucking place is this?”

Al just smiled as she dismounted the bike inside the garage. Alicia joined her and they unloaded the bike and entered the cottage by a door off the garage. Al went back for a second load of stuff, as Alicia explored.

The garage opened into a kitchen with the same soaring beams as the great room Alicia could see beyond it. The kitchen island held a six-burner gas range and was the size of a pool table. Windows over the double porcelain sinks overlooked the back and high up, to the side, the arch under the roof was also windows.

Dropping what she was holding, Alicia walked into the great room. The walls were almost all windows separated by heavy beams accented with huge iron bolts. The burnished wood of the floor matched the beams. In front of the windows, to the side of the doors that opened onto the deck, were window seats at right angles with back rests where Alicia could totally see herself sitting and staring at the…

Alicia’s breath caught in her throat. The view of the ocean beyond the windows and side deck was completely unimpeded. She was still standing there gazing at the Pacific in all its glory when Al walked up behind her and pushed a cold bottle of beer into her hand.

“Al, whose place…?”

Al looked down at a framed photo on a side table. A woman with chunky black glasses Alicia recognized as having her own cable news show stood with her arms around an older woman.

“Seriously, Al! Do you know how big of a crush I have, ah, had, ah, have on her?”

Al propped her chin on Alicia’s shoulder in a way that Alicia was becoming very used to. “Me too.”

“Don’t tell me you and her…?”

“Nope, unfortunately. She was already with her wife when I met her at a women’s conference. Her wife is fifteen years older than her. Kinda like me and you.”

Al moved in front of Alicia and put her arms around the shorter woman’s neck her own beer bottle held behind Alicia’s head. “She’s taller than me too, if you can believe it,” Al smirked. “You like the place?”

Alicia gave her a fake annoyed look.

“Do you need to ask? Now move; you’re blocking my view!”

**A bit later**

Alicia was running a handheld steam iron over her black dress where it hung on the back of the bathroom door. Al had ironed her dark wool pants and laid out what looked to Alicia like a silk shirt before going into the great room where she had fallen asleep in a club chair.

Alicia was sorely tempted to go do to Al what she had wanted to do all afternoon on the ride up to Big Sur, but Al had been insistent that they had a reservation at a restaurant at a nearby lodge that they couldn’t miss. Alicia had looked at her askance when she pulled out her dress and sling back shoes so Al had smiled enigmatically and mumbled something about having a ride.

Looking at the time, Alicia went and stood over Al, nudged her foot. “You said our ride would be here at quarter to. We have thirty-five minutes to get ready.”

Al yawned. “Oh, dear! Is that enough time for you to do your make up?” she said in a fake valley girl accent.

“Bitch!” Alicia walked away smiling.

The ride was a guy in an old but well-kept car. To Alicia he looked like a stereotypical California surfer dude: blond and tanned wearing a white tank top and board shorts. He smiled at Al and grinned at Alicia.

“Ms. Althea,” he held out his fist for Al to bump. “The lodge?”

Alicia thanked him graciously when he held open the car door for her. Al said nothing, just snuck glances at Alicia as they rode the ten minutes down another side road to the restaurant of a huge lodge. Like the cottage, the restaurant had an ocean view.

Al gave her name to the hostess and, as they were led into the large dining area, Al linked her arm through Alicia’s. Most of the tables were taken by male – female couples, mostly older than Al and clearly affluent. Al looked at no one as they were seated at an intimate table next to the windows but Alicia smiled at one or two people as they walked by them.

Al pulled out Alicia’s chair for her before seating herself.

“You’re such a gentleman,” Alicia told her with a smile.

Al sat back and crossed her legs. “You look gorgeous, Alicia. Did you see all those dirty old farts checking you out?”

Alicia shrugged one bare shoulder. She was wearing a simple black, sleeveless dress, low cut in the front exposing smooth, flawless pale skin. The dress fell to just above her knee and she pulled it down as she crossed her legs. On her feet she wore the black shoes with a conservative heel, but a heel none the less. Dark eyeliner, a bit of mascara, foundation to cover the ruddiness her cheeks had taken on from the motorcycle ride, and a clear lip gloss finished her look.

Alicia knew she looked good and so did Al. Her date wore black, well-cut, perfectly fitting pants, ankle boots and a dark green silk shirt a shade that matched the highlights of her eyes in the dim evening light. The shirt was unbuttoned enough to make no mistake that underneath were female breasts. At some point Al had applied her own eyeliner which brought out the colour of her eyes that Alicia was having such a hard time looking away from.

A waiter, who could be a brother to the young man who had driven them, approached and smiled at them. “Good evening ladies, I’m Patrick.” Reaching to the table he turned over their water glasses and filled them from the stainless-steel jug he carried. “Can I get you a cocktail from the bar?”

“Angostura 1919, rocks,” Al said and looked at Alicia.

“Gin and tonic,” Alicia smiled at him.

“Tanqueray? Bombay?” Patrick prompted.

“Surprise me,” Alicia beamed her best smile at him. He blushed.

“Excellent, I’ll be right back with those.”

As he left the table Al leaned forward fanning herself with the wine list. _Did you see him blush?_ Al mouthed at Alicia.

Alicia shrugged a single shoulder again. “He’s cute,” Alicia said. “But you’re fucking hot!”

When Al blushed, Alicia laughed.

Al picked a bottle of California white wine, a sauvignon blanc, to go with their mains of pacific halibut. “No appetizer, ladies? Not that hungry?” Patrick asked innocently enough.

“The bread is fine,” Alicia replied. “We don’t want to eat too much. We expect to be rather busy later.”

Patrick blinked and looked from a shyly smiling Alicia to Al who gave him a tiny shrug and her slow playful smile. 

Alicia drank wine and looked at Al over the glass when Patrick walked away. “You don’t mind the…?”

“Sex talk,” Al finished. “Innuendo or otherwise? No, I love to talk about sex.”

“You know that I haven’t…” Alicia started then added, “with a woman that is.”

“I know,” Al said softly. “Every girl has to start somewhere and I’m not a bad place to start.” She ended this statement with her easy smile.

“No, you’re not.” Alicia drank more wine and reached out for more bread. Smearing butter on the baguette slice, Alicia looked squarely at Al. “You liked it when I pushed you up against the wall and kissed you the other night, didn’t you, Al?”

Al drew in a breath and reached for the wine bottle in its cooler to refill their glasses. Draining the rest of the bottle equally into their glasses, she looked around and caught Patrick’s eye for a second bottle.

“I did. Despite the circumstances, I did very much.” Al drank and met Alicia’s direct gaze. “I’m not afraid to say I like strong women and that’s not something I share with just anyone.”

“You reacted…” Alicia paused trying to find the right words. “You reacted in a way no one has ever reacted to me before. It was raw…”

“Yes, it was.”

“It was real…”

Patrick was hovering just out of hearing behind Al so Alicia paused and gave him a nod. He came forward and, without a word, uncorked the new bottle and placed it in the chiller taking away the empty.

“It was real and it was honest.”

“Yes, it was,” Al replied again.

“I want to feel that again.”

**A Little Bit Later**

They made out in the back of the car on the way home from the restaurant. The car had come to a stop and had sat idling for a few minutes before their driver cleared his throat.

“Ahem, we’re here ladies. You can carry on inside,” he said looking at them in the rearview mirror.

Al slipped out the same side as Alicia while the driver held the door. “Let me know if you need anything else, Ms. Althea. You know, groceries, take-out, a fire hose, that kind of thing.” He smiled and Alicia gave him a peck on the cheek.

“I’m sure we’ll be fine,” she said smiling at him.

“I’m sure you will be,” he returned still grinning.

Inside the cottage Al keyed in the code to the alarm system before Alicia was on her again.

“Bedroom?” Alicia asked nibbling at Al’s neck her body pinning the other woman to the wall beside the door.

“Yes, bedroom sounds good,” Al managed to squeak.

The bedroom was partially above the garage and accessed by a short flight of stairs off the kitchen. Like the great room below, the bedroom commanded an incredible view. Al turned on a small bedside lamp and left the blinds on the windows facing the ocean open.

The last of the light was fading, the sky a rich cobalt blue. Al sat on the bench at the foot of the bed and leaned down to unlace her boots. Alicia kicked off her shoes, one to each side of her. Stepping up to Al, she stroked her fingers along the underside of Al’s chin and raised Al’s face to look at her. Stepping back one pace, Alicia pulled her dress off over her head in one fluid motion. Watching Al’s eyes widen and go darker, she unhooked her bra.

Tossing both bra and dress on the bench beside Al, Alicia knelt on one knee in front of Al and, with very slow deliberate movements, loosened the laces on Al’s boots and pulled each of them off. Hands caressing Al’s firm calf muscles, Alicia slipped off Al’s socks. Taking even more time, Alicia gently rubbed each of Al’s long, broad feet in turn.

“God, that feels good,” Al said her voice husky.

Alicia looked up at Al her smile soft. “I want to make you feel good, Al.” Leaning in, one hand on either side of Al’s hips on the bench, Alicia kissed her not holding back on the tongue exploration that, from the sounds Al was making, were welcomed with enthusiasm. Holding Al’s lower lip between her teeth, Alicia slipped her right hand inside Al’s shirt and across her breast palm grazing her nipple.

“I didn’t think you were wearing a bra,” Alicia said against Al’s cheek. Al said nothing though Alicia could feel her smile. Dropping back onto her haunches, still on one knee, Alicia unbuttoned the last few buttons of Al’s shirt and pulled it loose from her pants.

“Stand up, Al.”

Al raised one eyebrow briefly as her mouth quirked into a smile. Eyes never leaving Alicia’s, Al stood in front of the other woman; Alicia’s face on level with her groin. When Al’s hands went to unbuckle her belt, Alicia pushed them aside. Quickly, easily, Alicia unbuckled Al’s belt and unbuttoned her pants. A hand on each side of Al’s hips, she slipped the pants down Al’s long legs and helped her step out of them.

“My commando,” Alicia said softly as the removal of Al’s pants showed she was wearing no underwear. Leaning back, Alicia took a moment to admire how the tails of Al’s dark shirt hung down over her smooth, pale thighs and over her rear. Starting at Al’s knees, Alicia ran one hand up each of Al’s thighs her thumbs grazing Al’s pubic mound. That elusive touch was met with a sharp exhalation from Al.

Alicia circled her hands around Al’s rear each hand grasping a small, very firm buttock. When one hand’s finger tips moved into the gap between her buttocks and along her intimate space to as far as Alicia could reach, Al huffed again, sharper this time and her abdominal muscles contracted with a jerk.

Leaning her head against Al’s groin, nose to Al’s mound, Alicia continued the caresses running the tips of her index fingers where Al seemed to enjoy it most.

Just under her cheek, Alicia could see some words tattooed along Al’s lower right oblique next to the edge of her pubic hair. Leaning back just a bit, Alicia read the Spanish words _soy lo que ves_. Alicia translated in her head: _I am what you see._

_Nice,_ she thought.

Moving her hands steadily, warmly over Al, Alicia whispered, “You like that?”

“Oh, yes!” Al’s abdomen twitched again harder this time and she held on to Alicia one hand in her hair the other holding Alicia’s left elbow. “So, good,” Al groaned this time her head dropping back as she breathed out.

Al’s pubic hair ticked Alicia’s nose and Alicia breathed in Al’s subtle scent. It was like nothing she had experienced before and, along with Al’s eager movements in reaction to her hands, Alicia felt an intense surge of arousal.

“I want you right here, right now!” Alicia said into Al’s mound.

Al gave a little squeak that turned into a much deeper groan when Alicia’s hand brushed the hair back from her pubic area and Alicia’s tongue dragged along her slit, once then a second time, deeper and more direct.

A long groan gave into a sigh of inarticulate longing as Alicia’s mouth found Al’s most sensitive spot and began to trace circles with the flat of her tongue interspersed with a soft suckling. Her one leg braced against the edge of the bench; Al raised her other to rest her foot up on the seat.

One hand, fingers tangled in Alicia’s hair, held on tightly but not uncomfortably, her other hand on Alicia’s shoulder flexed and unflexed as Al splayed her fingers out and retracted them in rhythm to what Alicia was giving her.

“You can use your…hand…to…” Al tried to say between harsh breaths.

Alicia released her right hand from the tight grip it had on Al’s butt cheek. Bringing it around and down below her own jaw, she slid one finger up and into Al. After a moment, the one finger was joined by a second and Al groaned.

“Yes, like that…”

It did not take long after that. When Al’s breathing became shorter and her abdominal muscles began to contract tighter and tighter, Alicia quickened her pace. Suddenly, Al gave a sharp squeak and sucked in a deep breath. Her body gave a couple quick twitches and she breathed out with a long moan from deep in her chest. Her head dropped back and Alicia felt Al’s fingers splayed out on either side of her head.

Al’s orgasm lasted longer than Alicia expected. She held on, fingers still inside her lover and her tongue still on Al’s throbbing clitoris. Slowly Al began to relax. Her head dropped toward her chest, eyes still closed and one hand smoothed Alicia’s hair back.

“Uhhh…” Al breathed deeply in and out as Alicia released her. Smiling down at Alicia, Al pushed off Alicia’s shoulders and, with both feet on the bench she launched herself backward to flop onto the bed the soft comforter puffing out around her.

To Alicia she looked like a sated, contented cat. If she had started to purr and lick her paw, Alicia would not have been the least bit surprised.

Alicia climbed onto the bed then up over Al. Al’s eyes were closed when Alicia’s mouth met hers. The kiss was hungry on Alicia’s part, languid on Al’s. Breaking off, Alicia flipped her hair over the back of her neck gathering it in a loose ponytail.

“You taste nice,” Al opened her eyes. Staring up at Alicia she cocked her head slightly. “I thought you said you had never…? That was pretty damn amazing for ‘_I haven’t before._’”

“I haven’t,” Alicia slipped to Al’s right side and rested her head on Al’s shoulder her chin on Al’s breast just above her nipple. When Al made a little _hmmm_ of a question, Alicia continued. “I read things,” Alicia tried to explain. “Things on the Internet.”

“Porn?” Al was slightly incredulous.

“Not porn, fanfiction. Though I suppose some of it might be considered that. Remind me to explain it to you sometime.”

“Let me up for a sec,” Al rolled to the side and found her phone in her pants pocket. Slipping it into the speaker dock on the night table she cued a playlist. “Romance,” Al said when the sensual tones of Diana Krall’s contralto began.

“Romance?” Alicia followed Al higher up on the bed and tucked herself along Al’s left side. Alicia could feel a small bandage still covering the wound on Al’s side. Hoping not to break the mood, she softly smoothed it back into place where it had slipped slightly. “Are you hoping to seduce a girl?”

“Don’t need to.” Al ran a hand down Alicia’s side and down her thigh. “I already did.”

“She’s a lucky girl,” Alicia said meeting Al’s mouth in another long, deep kiss. When Al began to push Alicia onto her back, Alicia resisted. “Who said I’m done with you?” she said against Al’s ear.

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yeah.”

Alicia pushed Al over onto her back, straddled her hips. Lowering herself slowly over Al, Alicia kissed her again, this time feeling Al push up against her, arousal reigniting. Alicia kissed her way along Al’s throat, along her neck, to her collar bones finding another sensitive spot when Al made a soft, wordless sound.

One of Alicia’s hands moved over Al’s breast, thumb tweaking the nipple once then once again. Moving down Al’s body, Alicia’s still hungry mouth found Al’s other breast and Al’s back arched, her breath huffing out as Alicia began to give her sensitive nipple the same sort of attention she had already given her clitoris.

Pushing her hand down between Al’s legs, Alicia moved off her lover’s body to give her more access. She found Al still warm and still wet. Her fingers slipped down and inside Al again easily as her thumb found Al’s clitoris.

“God, Alicia…” Al gasped.

“Keep up, Al. I know you’re older than me, but really.”

Alicia felt Al’s chest vibrate as she laughed. Then Alicia was back at her nipple again and Al gave in to the sensations. When Alicia could feel Al getting close for the second time, she raised her head to watch the emotions sweep across Al’s face.

An almost unbearable tension, then a release like a weight bearing down then suddenly lifted. Al made a plaintive cry, a gasp, then a moan that started loud then tapered off as her arched back slowly settled back on the bed.

When Al’s strong inner muscles released Alicia’s fingers, Alicia cupped Al’s pubic mound possessively. “Quite the grip you’ve got there, Al.” Alicia kissed Al softly on the mouth and forehead.

“Probably the pelvic floor exercises I do,” Al smiled her expression sly.

Alicia stared down at Al and Al could see her tension. Al ran a hand down Alicia’s side and stopped at the waistline of her underpants. “Why don’t you take these off,” Al said. “I don’t think you need them.”

Alicia sat up and pushed the panties off her hips and wiggled out of them. Sitting with her legs under her, Alicia stared at Al and, for the first time, Al sensed her uncertainty.

“This is the easy part, Alicia,” Al said sliding down off the pillow until her head was flat on the bed. “All you have to do is feel. Now come here.”

Al motioned for Alicia to straddle her again. When she did, Al’s smile was intense with desire. “Now come up here.” Alicia moved tentatively up over Al’s chest. “All the way up here.”

Alicia gave a little sound of anticipation and possibly of hesitation. “They don’t do this in your fiction?” Al asked looking up at Alicia. Al’s hands were on her butt stroking and kneading.

“They do,” Alicia’s voice was tight.

“That’s good, but they’re not me.”

Al moved a little lower and her mouth rose to meet Alicia.

Over the next few minutes, Alicia understood the language of pleasure she had brought out of Al as she repeated some of the same sounds herself. Al’s tongue probed Alicia’s center, stroked all over her hot, damp area before finding her clit and flicking fast and merciless. When Al’s mouth closed over her hyper sensitive nub and began to suck, Alicia let her upper body fall forward, her hands on the headboard.

Al’s left hand moved between them finding a breast and a willing nipple to tease. Al’s other hand, in a surprising move of dexterity got between them, right under Al’s chin where she could maneuver two fingers inside Alicia.

After that, Alicia didn’t think about much other than pleasure. Her hips began to move of their own accord allowing Al to simply hold her hand steady as Alicia set her own rhythm. Alicia felt sweat began to stand out in the small of her back as she began to strain as she neared her climax.

Al stayed with her, kept up with her; drove just a little harder to push her over the edge. When Alicia came, she was not quiet, was not reserved. She howled, growled out her pleasure; breathed like she would never get enough air ever again.

Al’s hands were flat on her thighs when Alicia finally came down from her high. Alicia looked down at Al, flipped her hair behind her neck and smiled slowly, lazily.

“Liked that did you?” Al asked softly her chin still brushed by Alicia’s pubic hair.

Alicia nodded.

“Good. Now I know you’re younger than me, but really, try to keep up, will you? I have a lot more I want to do with you and we have all night.” 

With a deft move, Al moved out from under Alicia and slipped in behind her the front of her thighs against the back of Alicia’s thighs. Wrapping her arms around Alicia, Al nuzzled her neck.

“So, what do they do next in your fanfictions?” Al asked.

“They make love all night,” Alicia reached over her shoulder and caught a handful of Al’s hair. “Think you can handle that?”

Alicia felt Al purse her lips against her neck.

“Maybe not, but I sure want to give it a try.”


	6. I Am What You See

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m not one to give up on wounded things, Al. Most of the time all they need is love.”

Al stood at the foot of the bed holding her Nikon DSLR camera. Alicia was still sleeping; all tousled, comfortable and, to Al, sexy.

Grey morning light struggled to light the room in anything other than an easy dimness. It was overcast outside, rain threatening. Al raised the camera and looked at the LCD screen and the image of Alicia in it.

Alicia lay mostly on her belly, one leg under the white duvet the other on top, her knee slightly raised. One arm was under her head, chin on her bicep, the arm extending out with her hand hanging off the edge of the bed. She wore tiny sleep shorts with subtle pinstripes and a light blue shirt also with pinstripes. Her face was relaxed, her hair tousled and swept back from her forehead. To Al she looked sweet and downright delicious.

Lowering the camera Al stared. An intense desire was stirring in her gut. The desire to go to the bed, run her fingers through Alicia’s hair and, as she stirred, lean over to give her a soft good morning kiss. Alicia would wake the same way Al did the morning after their first date: With a woman who wanted her and told her so in actions if not in words.

Raising the camera again, Al tried to push the feeling of arousal away as she framed and shot several still pics. She rarely shot stills of people and almost never of people she knew. Her video camera was both a recording witness and a buffer between her and the people she interviewed. Alicia was different. Different in so many ways.

She was causing Al intense feelings and those feelings were, when she was honest with herself, triggering her flight instinct. The need to escape before she felt too much and the girl became too attached. With Alicia, she knew, it might already be too late.

Looking at Alicia asleep, she felt not only a strong sexual yearning, but also a tenderness that left her smiling as she thought of Alicia not only as a sexual partner, but also as a friend; someone she wanted to spend time with somewhere other than in bed.

Al was feeling too much and becoming attached. And this was a problem. Feeling too much was always a problem; she just didn’t know what to do about it this time. Every other time the solution to the problem had been simple; run. But Alicia wasn’t simple; she was complicated, she was interesting, she was kind and sweet and she was way too sexy. Al sighed.

Powering off the camera she set it aside and went to the bed. Sitting next to Alicia, Al did what her desire was demanding; she drew her hand along Alicia’s bare thigh from just above her knee up to and under and her shorts. As she stroked the warm, soft leg from butt to hip and then back down the front of the thigh, Alicia stirred.

When Al looked up, hand paused in repeating the caress, Alicia was blinking at her. “Good morning,” Alicia murmured, mind and mouth still more asleep than awake. Alicia yawned and when her mouth closed, Al met her lips with a tender kiss.

“Good morning to you,” Al said their lips barely separated.

Alicia rolled onto her back and Al took the opportunity to slip her hand under Alicia’s shirt and across her warm abdomen. Alicia shivered. “Al, your hand is cold!” Pushing at the offending hand, Alicia giggled.

“Maybe you can warm it up then,” Al pushed her hand lower and into Alicia’s shorts as she moved in for another kiss. The kiss and the intimate touch were interrupted by a rumbling. Al broke off and, taking her hand out of Alicia’s shorts, poked the other woman’s stomach.

“There’s a monster in there.” 

“Yes, I know,” Alicia agreed as her gut rumbled again. “It needs feeding!” she said and grinned.

Al lowered her head to nibble at Alicia’s lower abdomen. “I don’t think I will provide you with enough sustenance. Perhaps I should cook something. The coffee is already on.”

Getting up, Al paused when Alicia grabbed her hand. Alicia pursed her lips into a little moue of disappointment then smiled. Releasing Al’s hand, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. “I’ll be right out after I pee.”

Al had eggs, turkey bacon, and pancake mix beside the stove with various pots and pans. Alicia poured coffee into a mug and hopped up onto the kitchen island on the other end away from the stove.

“There should be a law against that,” Alicia said.

“What?” Al was beating pancake mix while the bacon sizzled. “A cute girl making you breakfast?”

Alicia laughed. “A girl like you doing what you did last night and then making me breakfast is a dream come true. I was talking about the turkey bacon.”

“Jason,” Al said flipping two large pancakes. “Our driver from last night. Patrick’s boyfriend. He brought some groceries over a little while ago.”

“Ah, I see,” Alicia took the plate Al handed her with one pancake and several slices of bacon. “The services at this resort are excellent.” She hooked her toes under Al’s T-shirt when Al moved to stand beside her with her own plate. “Especially the personal services.”

“Then you should give it five stars and a really good review,” Al said smearing butter and then maple syrup on her pancake.

“Breakfast was good, oral sex was better,” Alicia quoted around a mouth full of pancake.

“That’s what all the girls write in their reviews,” Al said with her sly grin. “You need to come up with something better; something more unique.”

“All the girls, huh? How many?” Alicia had finished the food on her plate and held it out for more.

“Lots, too many, not enough. It doesn’t matter,” Al replied pouring more pancake mix into the frying pan. “Most aren’t worth talking about.”

“Then tell me about Belen.”

Al’s hand hesitated as she flipped the two fresh pancakes.

“Your best friend,” Alicia prompted.

“I know,” Al said softly. “My best friend, my first lover. I went to university and she went to jail. For something I did.”

Al refused to continue the story until they had finished eating and cleaned up the dishes. When they went in the great room and settled on one of the window seats with a blanket, Al between Alicia’s knees and laying back against Alicia’s chest, it was a while before Al resumed. Alicia waited for a bit before prompting again.

“How did you meet?”

“She moved into the neighbourhood when we were ten.” Al shifted so that she was able to see Alicia’s face but was still warm between her raised legs. “My dad built my brother and I a treehouse that looked like a pirate ship. Jesse and I were having a sword fight or something when I looked down and she was standing there looking up.”

Al smiled remembering. “She was a tough kid. She managed to break into the bubble that Jesse and I had around us. We did everything together.”

“You and your brother?”

“My twin.”

Alicia drew in a breath trying very hard to conceal her reaction. She now had two pieces of information and neither was good: Al’s brother had died and Belen had gone to jail for something Al blamed herself for.

“Belen had a guitar first, a cool bicycle and a skateboard, a CD player. She kissed me first. I think we were thirteen or fourteen; just starting to think about that sort of thing. We were up in that treehouse. She pushed me right down on my back and pressed her mouth against mine,” Al was smiling again. “It was a hot day. I remember the taste of sweat on her upper lip. She held me down and looked at me. _‘I think that’s how you do it’_ she said. She had watched her older sister kissing her boyfriend. I was doing something without my brother and it was weird. It was like I had learned to function only with him around for all those years before her. By the time we were almost teenagers, Belen didn’t care about him she just wanted me. When I think about it now, I think I didn’t understand that she just liked me for me. I always felt I needed to impress her. Maybe I thought she would stop liking me if I wasn’t showing her how brave and…”

“Reckless,” Alicia filled in.

“Yeah, reckless. How reckless I was. I was the kid who stood on the tracks when a train was coming. The kid who jumped off the highest rock into the lake, rode my skateboard down the biggest hill. I think, maybe, when I moved away from Jesse, I was insecure. I no longer had that part of me that was like my own shadow. My other side. My instant validation. I never needed to impress him or prove anything to him. He accepted me as I was.”

Al was quiet for a time, her cheek against Alicia’s chest, nose tucked inside her shirt.

“She was my first lover, my first anything. I didn’t know anything about anything until she touched me and then I thought I knew everything. Belen and I had been in my room, playing guitar listening to music. We were working on getting a band together. Belen only wanted girls so it was hard finding a drummer and a bass player. That afternoon I don’t know what was different. We were kissing, just making out. Then it was different. I think she must have read some of the same things you did,” Alicia could feel Al smile against her skin. “She knew what to do. I didn’t._ ‘This is what girls do when they love each other, Al’ _she told me. I don’t know if I was more blown away by what she made me feel or that she said she loved me.

“When Jesse came in my room later, after Belen left, it was like he knew. He was happy that I had someone who made me happy. Even if he didn’t really _get _Belen, he respected her. She was the kind of girl no one messed with. _‘Now she can take care of you, Reckless.’_ He told me_. ‘And I don’t have to.’_ I teased him. I told him I was the one that took care of him. It was equal, I’m sure, we were always there for each other. He was always going to be a part of me even if Belen had my heart.”

“What happened? What happened to Jesse? Why did Belen go to jail?”

Al sighed but didn’t speak. Her hand had slipped under Alicia’s shirt and was gently caressing Alicia’s side when she was talking about her first time being kissed. Now her hand moved higher and found Alicia’s breast. Al’s palm rubbed her nipple and Alicia caught her breath.

Rain burst against the window as Al replaced her hand with her mouth on Alicia’s breast and Alicia lay back with a deep sigh. One hand combed through Al’s soft hair, the other traced Al’s bare skin up and down her back under her T-shirt and along her side over her bandaged wound.

Thinking that Al would shift so she could get her hand down to between her legs, Alicia was somewhat surprised when Al went no further. The gentle treatment to her breast slowed gradually until, with another long exhale, Al stopped and settled against Alicia’s chest her breath slowing. After a few minutes, Alicia knew she was asleep.

She didn’t know whether she was disappointed things had gone no further, or if it was something else. Alicia wasn’t sure what she was feeling; that Al had been so content to fall asleep within her arms was sweet. That Al had sought and taken comfort in her body in a way that was usually sexual was new to her. Holding Al against her, Alicia closed her eyes.

**Later**

Alicia was flipping through her phone one handed when Al stirred. She had been looking at the comments on her Instagram post laughing to herself when one of her friends called Al _‘a cute guy.’ _Most of the comments were surprised but positive which made Alicia feel good.

There was also a short text exchange with Belen that started with the other woman’s question.

_How’s it going? Are you cracking that hard shell of Al’s?_

_I dunno. Maybe. She’s a tough nut._

_Don’t I know it. Get her to tell you about when we were teenagers and all the stupid things she did because she thought she had to buy my love. _

_Yeah _ _been there. At least some of it. I’m beginning to understand her._

_Uh oh!_ _That’s dangerous. You’ll destroy the “unknowable Al” image she’s worked so hard to build and maintain_ 😊

_Good. I want to cause she’s not a big mystery. She’s just a girl who’s been through a lot and thinks no one will understand. _

_You need to tell her how you feel and she needs to deal with that. I just hope she can face it head on._

_Me too._

Alicia put her phone aside when Al turned and looked at her. “Hey,” Alicia said and ran her fingers through Al’s floppy fringe of hair. Al looked sleepy and something Alicia hadn’t seen yet: vulnerable.

Al turned away from Alicia and pulled her knees up to her chest as she compacted herself into a tight ball. Alicia stroked her back; let her fingers trail along the collar of Al’s T-shirt at the back of her neck. Just below the fabric of her shirt, out of sight for the most part, Al had another tattoo.

The word RECKLESS in a gothic sort of script arched over a red heart. A broken red heart. Alicia traced the letters with her finger.

Al gave a quick exhale; a sort of_ hmmph_ and laugh combined. As if reading Alicia’s intentions and picking up where she left off, Al looked back at Alicia then looked away again.

“When Belen got out of jail, she came to Berkeley and found me. When I saw her, I didn’t know if she wanted to kill me or pick up where we left off and be lovers again. Lovers and rock stars!” Al laughed.

The rain had stopped and, as Al paused, a crack appeared in the clouds and sunlight streamed down over the ocean below them. The clouds were moving fast, headed inland pushed by a strong wind.

“She did two years and an extra year for beating up some girl while in there. All of it for me. I really didn’t think I’d see her again. I thought she would’ve moved on. I did – in some ways, at least – I was still reckless just in a different way.”

Alicia didn’t say anything, not in words. With her finger she traced the outline of the heart then, starting at the top, she drew a jagged line down the middle of it.

“Yeah,” Al said slowly turning to look at Alicia. “That. And when I became a journalist there was nowhere I wouldn’t go, no one I wouldn’t interview.”

Alicia didn’t speak. She reached out to Al, stroking her hair again and letting her hand fall to Al’s cheek where she cupped it with her palm. Al’s vulnerability was like a weight on her own heart. Alicia was able to hold Al’s gaze until, swallowing hard, Al looked away.

Getting up from the window seat, Al started to walk away until Alicia grabbed her wrist. Al stood stuck in place while Alicia stood in front of her, moved in close and, with a hand to her cheek again, Alicia kissed Al. Slowly, tenderly and deeply. When Alicia pulled back, Al stood both breathless and speechless. She tried to look away but Alicia wouldn’t let her.

“I’m not going away, Al,” Alicia said pulling Al into a tight embrace. “I see what you are, Reckless heart breaker. I see, and I’m not afraid.”

Al said nothing just sighed in Alicia’s arms her face pressed into Alicia’s shoulder. They stood that way for a long time until Alicia spoke again and Al’s morose slipped away.

“Now are you going to take me to the beach, or take me to bed? Either is good though not going to the beach when the sun is shining is a damn shame.”

Al laughed softly against Alicia’s shoulder.

They took the motorcycle to the beach. The sun was out but the breeze off the water was sharp behind a northwest wind. Alicia was happy for the extra layer they both wore. The beach was iconic central California coast; a curve of sand tucked in between arms of jagged rock. They walked hand in hand to the far end where there was some shelter from the wind. There, they sat shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh still holding hands.

“If it could just stay like this,” Alicia said softly, “if not telling me the rest of your story could keep us like this, I think I could be happy. I know it’s not going to be that way though.”

Al squeezed her hand and raised it to her mouth to kiss each knuckle in turn. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. Don’t be sorry for telling me what you need to say. I just wish it wasn’t hurting you so bad. I’d rather see you happy and playful again. I like that Al.”

“I do too,” Al stole a quick glance at Alicia and smiled. “I have my moments. I have moments of pleasure, moments of joy. Moments when I think the world is under my feet and I'm on top of it all. Then I remember the bad. Remember all the hurt that I've caused and it all crashes in on me and I'm right back where I started."

Al pulled off her hoodie and lay her head in Alicia’s lap looking up at the younger woman.

“Jesse had been with a girl for a while and when they broke up, he took it hard. We had grown somewhat apart because of Belen and our music, and Jesse and his girlfriend, I guess. So, he decided to change that. He got our dad to buy him a used set of drums and he joined our band. Belen had found a bass player by then. A girl who was a distant cousin to her. She was good and Jesse took to the rock drummer role like he was born to it.”

Al paused and began to hum. Alicia recognized _Smells Like Teen Spirit_ and smiled down at Al.

“Lena, our bass player was bad news we just didn’t know it then. She ran with a harder crowd and on their edges were older guys, gangster guys. Belen was always able to avoid getting drawn into that scene though I knew it cost her friends. No one had expectations about a nerdy, reckless Polish girl; they did about a Latina who had grown up on the wrong side of town. She was so much more confident in herself than me. She could push people away and stand on her own. No matter how hard she tried with me, I couldn’t be like her. I needed the adrenaline being reckless and carefree gave me so when Lena began to draw me into her rougher crowd, it made me feel good.”

Al took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Alicia waited her out dreading what was to come.

“Our band had taken over my parents’ garage so when Lena said she needed to keep something there that she couldn’t keep at home, I didn’t care. I thought her friends were cool. Edgy and cool. I knew the packages were drugs, I just didn’t care. Belen didn’t know. She would’ve beaten the shit out of Lena if she had found out. Belen was focused on the music; it was coming together. We were getting good. And I ruined it all, well, I shouldn’t say just me. Lena played a big part in it, only it wasn’t her that told them about my dad’s guns. That was all me.”

Al sat up and took a water bottle from their backpack and drank. Alicia could see her hand trembling.

“My dad never took me shooting with him. He took Jesse, of course, Jesse was more responsible, he said. I resented the hell out of that. I was on my way home one night when a van pulled up beside me and they grabbed me. Just like on TV!” Al laughed. “It was the older guys, the gang guys. They drove me to my house, threw me in the door when I unlocked it. That was the beginning of the worst night of my life and it was all my fault.”

Alicia put her arm around Al’s waist and laid her head on Al’s back. “You don’t have to say anymore, I can tell this is hurting you.”

“I’ve got this far. I might as well finish,” Al turned and faced Alicia. “They were all home; Jesse, my parents. My dad wouldn’t give up the combination to the safe – he was a stubborn bastard, still is. There were three of them. The beat on Jesse, beat on me. Threatened to rape my mother. I was an ugly ass dyke, not worth raping, they said.” Alicia felt Al shiver; held her tighter. “They had a blow torch. Tried that on the safe but the thing was a fucking vault. That wasn’t going to work so they used it on me.”

Al’s hand went to her left arm and the ragged scar there. Alicia said nothing, there weren’t any words.

“You know, I don’t remember the pain. All I remember was my mom screaming. Screaming _‘what have you done? What have you done?’_ Over and over.” Al cupped her hands over her ears and rocked forward. “Belen came in around then. My dad used that as a distraction and got the .45 he had in the kitchen. I still don’t know where it was hidden. One of the gang guys jumped him, knocked the gun out of his hand and when it fell, it fell right next to me.”

Al looked at Alicia, took a deep breath as tears started in her eyes. Alicia felt her heart breaking for Al’s pain.

“I took that gun and started shooting. _‘With reckless disregard,’ _that’s what they said. _‘Reckless disregard.’_ The only one I hit bad enough to hurt was Jesse. The gang guys got away. On the way out the front door they threw something on the floor, lit it on fire with the blow torch. I crawled to Jesse with Belen hanging on me. I had hit him in the chest with one round. He was still alive. He was still alive when Belen and I got him outside. My dad went for my mom. He got her out but the smoke had gotten to her. She died in hospital the next day.” Al turned to look at Alicia her face contorted with anguish. “And Jesse died that night as I held him. _‘It’s OK, Al,’ _he said. _‘It’ OK. I love you.’_” Al sniffed hard, wiped her face with the back of her hand.

“My father blamed me and he was right. In one night, our family was destroyed and it was all on me. When the firefighters found the drugs in the garage, the cops came to me in the hospital. Belen was there with me. _‘They’re mine,’ _she told them. And they believed her. It was easier to believe the Hispanic girl whose cousin was tied to gangs then the poor girl who everyone thought then was just another victim of a home invasion gone bad. I told them the truth. Told them I was the one who fired the shots. I was the one that hid the drugs. My dad told them the same thing about the shooting. He couldn’t say anything about the drugs cause he didn’t know. The prosecutor wanted to charge me with reckless disregard. It dragged on for more than a year. We were nineteen when it was all done. I left Santa Fe for Berkeley and Belen went to jail. And my dad, my dad never forgave me.”

Al stood up and slipped out of her sweatpants and took off her shirt. In just her underwear she walked into the ocean. The waves were high and she dove through the biggest one.

Alicia stood at the tide line and watched her. Al was bobbing in the waves. She didn’t think Al intended herself any self-harm, yet she pulled off her pants, and in T-shirt and shorts, swam out to Al. The water was cold even if the sun was warm.

“Hey sexy, topless girl,” Alicia tread water next to Al. “You must be freezing your nipples off!”

Alicia watched as Al smiled and spit water straight up like a spouting dolphin.

“What I just told you, I’ve never told anyone.”

“I’m sorry you went through all that, Al. I’m sorry you were hurt. I just want you to know that it doesn’t change how I feel about you because I know inside, you are still you, and all these things in your life are just a part of you.”

Al let her legs drop down and tread water next to Alicia. They were nearly nose to nose. Two waves washed over them before Al spoke.

“It’s never ended any other way but badly with me.”

“Why? Because you’re carrying such a deep wound? You’re letting it define you and you shouldn’t.” Al looked away unable to meet Alicia’s eyes. When another wave came, Al let it push her under. When she didn’t surface right away, Alicia ducked under the water and pulled her up. “I’m not one to give up on wounded things, Al. Most of the time all they need is love.”

**Later**

Al hadn’t said much when they returned to the house on the cliff. They showered together; the water hot enough to warm their skin and blood. Alicia ran a soapy sponge over every part of Al’s body, rinsed her off and washed her hair. She let Al know with not so subtle hints that, should she want Alicia’s touch to go farther, she was willing and eager to provide that pleasure. Al didn’t resist so much as she didn’t respond.

They left the shower and the bathroom and, as Al pulled on clean T-shirt and shorts, she gave Alicia a short kiss. “I’m starving again. I’m going to make supper.”

Al carried chicken breasts slathered in barbeque sauce and vegetables wrapped up in foil out to the barbeque grill on the deck. Alicia followed carrying a bottle of wine and the glasses. Alicia sat where she could watch Al cook. Close enough to reach out a foot and touch a bare toe to a bare thigh. Al rewarded her with an indulgent smile.

They were on their second bottle of wine when they finished eating. After cleaning up, they settled in a lounge chair on the deck, Al holding Alicia between her legs this time. The wind had calmed and the deck was warm in the late afternoon sun.

“Are you trying to get me drunk so you can have your way with me?” Al asked as Alicia poured more wine for them both.

“Do I need to?” Alicia replied. “I didn’t think I did, because that would be a waste of good wine.”

Al laughed and squeezed Alicia harder. Alicia lay back against Al thinking some of the playful, sweet Al was returning and the sad, hurt girl retreating.

Al’s hands were low on her hips and moving tentatively. When Al began to nuzzle and nip at her neck, Alicia took one of Al’s hands and, not gently, pushed it down into her shorts. Al breathed out hard into Alicia’s ear as Alicia’s hips rose under her touch. Al’s fingertips moved over Alicia’s tender spot and dipped lower finding a near ocean of arousal.

“God, Alicia! Why didn’t you tell me…?” Al dipped her fingers in the moisture, moved them back to Alicia’s clitoris.

“Since when do you need a written invitation to make love to your girl?” Alicia held Al’s wrist tight and pushed her hand down hard. “Or, in this case,” Alicia grunted losing her train of thought for just a moment as Al’s hand made her gasp with pleasure. “Or, in this case,” she repeated then finished, “help her just get off!?”

Alicia felt Al laugh against her neck, felt her move under her so that her butt cheek was between Al’s legs. As Al’s hand moved fast and hard on Alicia, Al pushed up against Alicia grinding her groin just as hard.

Alicia came first just before Al. She could feel Al straining under her; felt Al’s last hard movement as she spasmed and grunted deeply. For a long moment Alicia felt them ride the climax together, then, with an even stronger, more plaintive sound than Alicia had heard from her yet, Al’s release took her even deeper and Alicia felt the air rush from her lungs in a long, slow moan of pleasure that made what she herself was feeling even more intense; and their connection become even deeper. 

They rested together, both breathing deeply of the fresh ocean air. Alicia got up first and held out a hand to Al. They went inside, the two of them nothing short of a bundle of tension.

Alicia let Al select a playlist. “I hope it’s at least five hundred songs,” Alicia said tightly as she pulled her shirt off over her head and tossed it aside. “Because this is going to take all night.”

Turning around, Al looked at the intense expression on Alicia’s face and gulped. Alicia smirked in the way that she had so often seen Al do and, with both hands on her chest, she shoved Al back on the bed. Al hit the bed and bounced slightly the look in her eyes dark with a hungry anticipation.

“Why, is everyone always pushing me…?” Al tried to ask just before Alicia’s mouth found hers.

“Because you like it, Al,” Alicia said in Al’s ear. “Strong woman here, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” Al huffed. “Oh, hell, yeah!”

**Later**

When Alicia woke up, she was alone in the bed. She found Al in the great room on one of the window seats. Hearing Al sniffle, Alicia hung back.

The moon was low on the horizon; a half disk out over the ocean. It was beautiful and painful at the same time. Alicia watched Al drink from a bottle, watched her wipe her face with the back of her hand.

Alicia let her head drop back against the side of the doorway from the kitchen. Al was the most complicated person she had ever met or cared about and that was saying a lot considering her brother was a heroin addict.

“You must think I’m bipolar,” Al said from across the room. When Alicia gave a start of surprise, Al continued. “I can see your reflection in the window.”

“That’s not what I think.” Alicia crossed the room and stood next to Al. Her abdomen was on level with Al’s head. Al leaned into her and Alicia touched a damp cheek. “I think you’re struggling and I wish to god there was something I could do to help you.”

Alicia reached down and took the bottle from Al and tipped back a healthy swallow. It was Amaretto; smooth, but with a nice bite.

Al breathed out against Alicia. Sniffled again.

“I’m sorry…”

“That you can save, I don’t need it.” Alicia drank from the bottle again and put it back in Al’s hand.

After a long moment Alicia started to talk and didn’t stop until she had said everything she needed to say.

“You’re going to do what you think you need to do, I know that, Al. I know that you might not ever fulfill my expectations, meet my needs. Be the lover I think you can be to me. I just need you to know this: You're not reckless, Al. You're human and sometimes all of us have doubts. Everyone has times we don’t know what to do; we don’t always know what’s right. What you can’t change, you just have to let go. Maybe your decision will bring you to me. I hope it does. Remember when you said no one ever fought for you? I’m not everyone. I will fight for you, I will be there for you, I just hope you know the difference between me and everyone else.”


	7. My Pirate Princess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Because I love her and I don’t think I can bear to be without her.”

Three days ago, Alicia had dismounted Al’s motorcycle in the driveway of her shared house. She let Al take off her helmet before she kissed her and gave her a last parting shot.

“Today is the first day of the rest of your life. And whether you like it or not, I want to be a part of it.”

After that, she had tried not to think about Al though that proved nearly impossible. She had sent Al one text message, a simple_ I’m here. I know you have stuff to work out but please just remember I care about you and don’t want to lose you. _

When the third day came around with nothing from Al, Alicia was starting to consider letting her go. The disappointment, let alone the hurt and the longing, was killing her though.

When her phone signaled an incoming text as she collected her backpack from her work locker, Alicia only had the will power to ignore it for about a minute.

It was from Belen and it was straight to the point.

_The bitch_ ☹ ☹

Alicia stepped into the elevator typing with her thumbs on her phone and ignoring the other people. She looked up only long enough to see that the button for the lobby had been pushed.

_What did she do? Is she gone?_

_Yes. _

Alicia stood in the library building’s lobby as people streamed around her. She felt like breaking her phone in half and may have at least tossed it against the marble floor had it not chimed another incoming text notification.

_I’m outside. Can you come out and talk to me?_

Alicia looked up. A jeep was parked at the curb in the same place Detective Jimenez had parked last week, with Belen standing beside it. Alicia marched stiffly out the door and down the walkway. Stopping in front of Belen, Alicia crossed her arms over her chest.

“Where did she go?”

“Do you have a passport?” Belen answered Alicia’s question with a question.

“What? I…”

“You need a passport to get into Canada now.” Belen took Alicia’s arm and pulled her toward the passenger side of the jeep. A campus police officer had pulled up behind Belen’s jeep and was getting out of her car. Still confused, Alicia got in the jeep and Belen pulled away from the curb and around the corner where she stopped in another no parking zone.

“You have no idea how much I’d like to go after her myself but I have a criminal record.”

“I’m sorry,” Alicia said.

“Don’t be,” Belen shot back adamant. “I made my bed and all that a long time ago and I will never believe she wasn’t worth it even if she never fails to be the stupidest…” Belen slipped into Spanish and Alicia stopped translating after the first few swear words. “What that girl needs is a good smack on her butt!”

Belen slapped the steering wheel in frustration and looked at Alicia. Her jaw was tight with anger and something else Alicia wasn’t sure of. Disappointment maybe, or perhaps even longing.

“Do you trust me, Alicia?” Belen said suddenly.

“I…” Alicia hesitated but looking at the other woman it was easy to decide. “Yes, Belen I do.”

“Good, cause here’s the truth of it: she wants you to go after her. There’s a part of her that she probably doesn’t even really understand, that needs to be rescued. I don’t think I can explain it and maybe I’m wrong about the word _rescue_, but anyway, you get where I’m coming from?”

Alicia looked away for a minute thinking. Thinking about the times that she had seen Al’s raw vulnerability. A vulnerability that had Al holding her tightly her face crushed into Alicia’s shoulder.

“Yeah, I think I do. I’m not sure I…”

“Don’t give me that! The hell you don’t know you’re the one, the only one who can stop her.”

Alicia stared at Belen for a moment feeling almost angry at the other woman’s words. When she looked away Belen moved on.

“Good. Now tell me this: Do you love her?”

Alicia breathed out sharply. Right then, in that moment the better question might have been did she hate Al, but Alicia could never feel that, not for Al, no matter what she did. Looking away, Alicia felt tears sting her eyes.

“Yes. Yes, I do love her. I don’t know why, but I do.”

“Join the club, girl,” Belen said her voice gentle. “Now, do you have a passport?”

Alicia nodded as Belen pulled away from the curb again.

**A little while later**

Belen was working her phone when Alicia came out of her house with a bigger backpack over her shoulder. She had changed into looser jeans and was wearing a sweater despite the LA temperature still being in the 90s after dark.

“You know, I might kill her when I catch up to her, right? In… where am I going again?”

“Nova Scotia,” Belen glanced up from her phone.

“Do they have the death penalty there?”

Belen smirked and dug in her pocket pulling out a wad of cash. Alicia held up her hands when Belen tried to give it to her.

“I can’t accept that!”

“Yes, you can. Most of it is Al’s. I broke into her apartment when I figured she’d done a runner. She has a little safe where she keeps some cash. She calls it _mad money_. And if that doesn’t apply to what you need it for, I don’t know what will!”

Belen swung her tall frame into the driver’s seat and jammed the car in gear.

“I’m going to take you right to the terminal the Canadian airlines fly out of. I think that’s your best bet. You have to fly out tonight or you won’t catch her. I sent it all to your phone.”

Belen sped up and the jeep shot through a yellow light.

“Where is she going, Belen?” Alicia gripped the side of her seat tightly as Belen drove fast up the ramp to the freeway.

“She’s going as far away as she possibly can. Tomorrow afternoon our little pirate gets on a boat, a ship, whatever, and sails off on a trip around the world.”

“Sounds like fun only she didn’t invite me.”

At the airport Belen gave Alicia a quick, hard hug. “Give her hell for me, alright? And keep me updated!”

Alicia started away, then turned back. Hugging Belen again she spoke in the taller woman’s ear. “You’re a good friend. I’m sure, somewhere inside Al knows that.”

Belen gave Alicia a crooked smile as she turned away.

There was one Air Canada ticket agent behind the long counter and no one in line. Alicia sped up as it looked like the agent was closing her terminal at the end of her shift.

“Flight 788, are there any seats left?”

The agent looked at her askance. “That flight departs in forty minutes, Miss.”

Alicia drew in a breath and let it out slowly willing herself to look sad. That didn’t take much doing when she thought of the last time she had kissed and held Al. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as she lied through her teeth.

“My grandmother is dying…” Alicia said softly. When the agent began to type in her terminal Alicia looked surreptitiously at her phone. “In Halifax.”

The agent was concentrating on her typing so Alicia simply waited; and sniffed and wiped her eyes.

“I can get you on flight 788 and when you get to Toronto you can take flight 604 to Halifax. Is that all you have for baggage?” The agent looked pointedly at the backpack Alicia had over her shoulder.

“Yes,” considering the look the woman was giving her, had Alicia actually had another suitcase or bag, she would’ve kicked it aside and smiled and said _‘what other bag?’_

Alicia handed over her passport and counted out the fare from her mittful of cash. It was less then she expected. She should even have enough to get home, if and when that time came, she would think about it then.

The printer spit out two boarding passes and the agent handed them to Alicia. Closing down her terminal she took her purse from a drawer and came around from behind the counter.

“Follow me,” she said all business. “I will get you through security and call the gate to tell them you’re coming.”

Alicia followed in the wake of the agent who walked quickly her heels snapping on the hard floor. When they reached the entrance to the security checkpoint there was a lineup. The Air Canada agent stopped and stretched her neck to look over the crowd of people. Spotting someone she knew, she called out and the guard waved Alicia forward.

Giving the agent a smile and a quick hug, Alicia moved to the front of one of the lines. Apologizing to the woman she was cutting in front of, Alicia tossed her backpack on the belt and emptied her pockets of everything except the cash.

She passed through the metal detector without a beep and collected her things at the end of the belt. The security guard on the other side looked at her boarding pass and called out to an airport employee sitting on an electric golf cart. “Hey, Victor! Can you get this girl to her gate? Her flight’s already boarding.”

The man smiled and Alicia hopped onto the cart beside him. “My grandmother…” Alicia started but stopped when the man smiled at her.

“Second time today,” she heard him say.

The agent at the gate was waiting by the open ramp door when Alicia arrived. She thanked her cart driver and hurried over. The agent checked her boarding pass and passport and Alicia proceeded down the long tube to the plane. At the door to the aircraft, a flight attendant was waiting.

“This way, Miss. Clarke,” he directed when Alicia would have turned toward the back of the plane. Instead she was directed forward into the business class section. Another attendant took her backpack to stow as Alicia slipped past a man in the aisle seat and dropped into the oversized plush seat next to the window.

Slipping her phone out of her pocket, she sent a short text to Belen telling her she was on the plane and booked through to Halifax. Sighing, she put her phone on airplane mode and closed her eyes.

_This was crazy! Crazy in a silly rom-com sort of way,_ Alicia told herself. She was flying across the country to catch a girl she had only just admitted she was in love with, to stop her from leaving… on a sailing ship for a trip around the world. _Yup, defiantly a romantic comedy. A good one too. Starring two really cute chicks. _

**A bit later**

Alicia’s aisle mate left his seat for the washroom and one of the flight attendants leaned in to talk to her. “How are you doing, Alicia? I’m Nicole. I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. You’re close?”

Alicia drank the last of the wine in her plastic glass and conjured an image of her mother’s mother. She hadn’t been close to her and the woman had died when she was young so it wasn’t a great way to try to generate the emotion she needed to continue the lie.

“No, not really. She moved away a while ago. I’m the only one in the family that can make the trip to see her…” Alicia stopped there. Adding more to the story was just making the lie worse. She smiled at the flight attendant. “Can I have some more wine?”

Alicia lay her head back and thought about Al. What was she going to say? A trip around the world on a sailing ship sounded like the adventure of a lifetime. How could she just walk up and tell Al not to go? Tell that to the woman who had spent two days in one of the most beautiful places on earth with her sharing an intimacy she had only dreamed about having; a woman who had bared her soul and asked nothing in return; and, most of all, this was the same woman who, after all that, had walked out of her life without a goodbye. Without a goodbye phone call or even a text. If that wasn’t rude, what was?

_Al? Why are you so complicated? Why do you have so many layers?_

Alicia thought about that for a minute. Maybe that’s what makes her so interesting? Her attraction to Al had been intense and immediate and, when she really thought about it, Al’s reaction had been the same. There was something there, something real. Something that in the rom-coms she liked to watch, sent the lovers crashing into each other’s arms at the end of the movie.

Alicia drank more wine and felt the tears start in her eyes again. The meal service was over and, since it was an overnight flight, the cabin lights had been dimmed. Turning toward the window she stared at the few lights she could see on the ground thirty-seven thousand feet below.

According to the flight tracker on the screen in front of her, they were over Colorado. For a long moment Alicia looked at the little screen; at the little airplane tracing its way across a continent and taking her with it.

_God, this is nuts!_

She tried to imagine herself at home knowing Al had left; knowing Al had given up on her and walked away. Tried to imagine she was doing nothing about it. Not a goddamn thing! No, that wasn’t her. She wouldn’t sit back and just let Al go. Amazing, complicated, cute as fuck, Al.

Alicia smiled to herself and closed her eyes.

**Later**

Alicia slipped carefully past her sleeping aisle mate and headed toward the washroom. When she came out the pretty blond flight attendant who had talked to her earlier was putting away food trays. When Alicia hesitated, the woman turned and looked at her with a smile.

“Anything else I can do for you, Miss. Clarke?”

Alicia breathed out and looked at the other woman. “No, I’m fine, Nicole. I just…” Alicia hesitated then decided to just jump right in. “I should apologize to you. My grandmother isn’t dying in Halifax. I’m going to Nova Scotia because the girl I love is being stupid and running away from me.” Alicia stopped then and watched Nicole’s expression go from concerned to something gentler. “She left without telling me after we spent an amazing weekend together and I can’t let her go…”

Alicia felt herself blush. “Now I just sound like a crazy stalker…”

“No, you don’t, Alicia.” Nicole reached out and touched Alicia’s forearm. “You sound like a girl who doesn’t want to lose the one she loves.”

“A part of me thinks I’m crazy, going after her, but I can’t let her get on that boat and sail off around the world...”

“She’s going on the Picton Castle?”

“Uh, yeah. That’s what it’s called. From some place called Lunenburg, I think.” Alicia paused and looked away. “So, I’m sorry I made up that story about an imaginary dying grandmother.”

Nicole smiled at Alicia. “Go get some sleep. You have a boat to catch and a long day ahead of you tomorrow.”

**06:25 EDT Pearson International Airport, Toronto, Ontario, Canada**

Alicia walked through Terminal 1 on the way to the gate for her flight to Halifax. Her flight from LA had landed a few minutes early and she had cleared customs without any problems. She had lost three hours of time since Toronto was three hours ahead of LA.

Another flight was listed on the board at her gate and people were milling around, so Alicia walked back to the Starbucks. Her phone vibrated with an incoming text while she stood in line. The text was from Belen.

_How’s Toronto? Cold?_ 😊

Alicia typed and hit send just before reaching the front of the line.

_Supposed to be 32 deg Celsius today, whatever that is. _

Carrying her coffee and muffin back toward the gate, Alicia found a relatively quiet spot next to the tall windows in between her gate and the next one. Outside the sun was shining brightly over the runways and taxi areas. In the far distance, was a busy expressway; cars and trucks moving silently sunlight flashing off steel and glass.

Belen had not responded so Alicia opened her email and began to type out a message to her mother. She didn’t get beyond _Hi Mom_ before she stopped, at a loss for what to say. Eventually she went with the truth; the crazy truth.

Finishing her coffee, she watched the people at her gate begin to line up as boarding started. After a few minutes her phone vibrated in her hand. Looking at the screen she expected to see a text from Belen. Instead, it was a call from her mother.

“Hi, mom,” Alicia said brightly. “You didn’t have to call. What time is it there?”

“It’s quarter to four. Have you been drinking? Do you need to me to come get you?”

Alicia could hear the murmur of a male voice and then the click of a door closing. She imagined her mother was now in the bathroom.

“No, mom.” Alicia hesitated. “I’m fine. I really am in Toronto. I’m on my way to Nova Scotia.”

There was silence over the line and Alicia pictured her mother trying to both wake up and process what she was hearing at the same time.

“Alicia, I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Madison’s voice was steady and serious.

“Mom, I…” Alicia took a deep breath and plowed on. “You remember Al?”

“That woman?”

_That woman_ about summed up Al for Alicia right now too.

“Yeah, her. My email…”

“You send me an email at four o’clock in the morning and expect me to…”

“I’m in love with her, mom!” Alicia blurted. “And she’s running away. I have to catch her and… and tell her how I feel.”

“In Toronto?”

“Ah, no. In Lunenburg.” Alicia let her head drop back against the window with a thump. Madison said nothing for a moment and Alicia could hear water running.

“You’re twenty-one…”

“Almost twenty-two.”

“And you’re in love…”

“Yes, I am and she’s breaking my heart.” At the end of that sentence Alicia heard her own voice drop to a soft squeak.

“Oh, Alicia.” Madison sighed.

“I need to do this, mom.”

“My willful girl. Are you sure about this?”

“I’ve never been so sure in my life,” Alicia answered firmly. “I should go. I’ll call you again later? OK?”

Once the call was disconnected, Alicia closed her eyes for a long time. When she finally opened them, the crowd for the flight ahead of hers had boarded and, behind her, she could see the plane leaving the gate. Tossing her empty coffee cup and muffin wrapper in the garbage, she headed down the concourse to stretch her legs and find a washroom.

Returning to the gate, she noticed her flight number was now on the board and people were filling the seats. Moving past a couple of rows she noticed an empty seat with a USB port in the arm rest she could use to charge her phone.

Sitting down, she smiled at the girl of about ten in the next seat. Beyond the girl a woman of about thirty or so sat with her arms crossed and head lolling to the side probably asleep. Alicia plugged in her phone and sighed.

“Are you going to Halifax?” the girl beside her asked.

“Yes, I am.” Alicia answered.

The girl had a colouring book on her lap and coloured pencils in a plastic box. Opening her book, she flipped through a couple of pages before stopping on one and scrutinizing the blank picture.

“My grandmother is dying,” the girl stated blandly.

Alicia blinked. “Really?” was all that came to her mind to say.

The girl shrugged. “Yeah, she was dying last month too, but this time mom thinks it’s for real.” The girl glanced at the woman beside her who hadn’t moved or reacted. “What colour do you think the princess’ hair should be?”

The girl turned the book so that Alicia could see it better. Alicia looked at the picture. The princess of the colouring book was a tall, striking figure with billowy harem pants and short colourless hair. She wore a vest over bare arms and in one hand she held a long telescope. Alicia blinked again. The princess was standing on the prow of a sailing ship. Behind her the sails were filled with wind and male figures were pulling on ropes.

“Her name is Althea and she has brown hair.”

“You can colour her then,” the girl said, “since she’s your princess. I have another colouring book.” Placing the pencils on the armrest between them, the girl reached into a small backpack at her feet.

Alicia found the brown pencil and coloured in princess Al’s hair. Finding the red, she coloured in the vest. Then, she added black for Al’s pants.

“She’s pretty,” the girl commented looking at Alicia’s colouring book.

“Yes, she is.” Alicia was adding stripes to princess Al’s vest to match the T-shirt Al had been wearing the day they met in the coffee shop. “She’s the prettiest thing I’ve seen since… forever I think.”

“Althea is a nice name. Did you make that up?”

“No, I know a girl named Althea. She likes to be called Al and she’s going away on a sailing ship.”

“Is she really your princess?” The girl’s voice was bright with excitement.

“Yes, I guess she is.” Alicia was colouring in the deck of the ship in a lighter brown than she had used on princess Al’s hair. “But she’s more like a pirate because she left without telling me goodbye.”

“So, you’re going to say goodbye to her?” The girl had closed her own colouring book and was leaning toward Alicia watching her work on her own picture. “In Halifax?”

“No, in a place called Lunenburg. It’s…”

“She’s going on the Picton Castle?” the girl was even more excited.

_This must be a Canadian thing_, Alicia thought. _They all seem to know about it._

“Yes, that’s the ship. But I don’t want her to go,” Alicia paused gripping the pencil tight.

“Why?” the girl looked deeply concerned the way only children can.

Alicia swallowed hard and stated the simple truth. “Because I love her and I don’t think I can bear to be without her.”

“I think I read a story like this. It was sad at first, but it had a happy ending. What’s your name?”

“Alicia. I think it was a movie.”

“My name is Megan and my mom is Naomi. We live in Prince George.”

Alicia had no idea where this was so she simply smiled at Megan. “My mom thinks I’m crazy to go all the way from California to chase after Al.”

“You’re not crazy, Alicia,” Megan said seriously putting her hand over Alicia’s. “She’s your princess and you love her.”

“Princess Al, the pirate princess,” Alicia said with a sigh.

**12:45 ADT Stanfield International Airport, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada **

The flight from Toronto had left late and, by the time they arrived in Halifax and deplaned, Alicia was beginning to get very worried. There had been several texts from Belen, each of them more despairing than the last.

_I’m looking at bus schedules. Are you sure a taxi won’t take you?_

_The three I talked to said they won’t. They’re too busy going back and forth from the airport to the city. There’s something going on…_

_There’s some kind of festival. That’s why you can’t get a rental car anywhere. We’re running out of time. _

_I’m going to check at Hertz again. There was a chance a car might be back early. _

Alicia stood in line again at the car rental desk only to be told there was still no car available. Walking away from the desk she looked to her left outside the windows to the covered driveway where rental cars were being dropped off and picked up. Megan and her mother stood outside and, as if sensing Alicia was looking at her, Megan turned and smiled.

Alicia gave a short wave but was unable to muster a smile. Dropping her backpack at her feet, she leaned over hands on her knees. She still had cash left, a fair bit, and in American dollars. A taxi driver was bound to take her to Lunenburg if she just flashed enough money at him. She would try that as a last resort.

Feeling a touch on her shoulder, Alicia looked up. Megan stood in front of her a look of sadness and concern on her face. “What’s wrong, Alicia? Why are you sad?”

“I can’t get a rental car and even if I got a bus, I wouldn’t be able to get there in time before the ship leaves,” Alicia said and sighed.

Megan took her hand and, half led, half dragged, her outside.

“We’re taking Alicia to Lunenburg, mom,” Megan stated. “She needs to catch her pirate princess before she sails away on the Picton Castle.”

Naomi, Megan’s mother, looked from her daughter to Alicia. “Are we?” Although the words were stern, Alicia could hear the fond indulgence in her voice. “We also need to get to Middleton to see your grandmother.”

Megan put her hands on her hips. “You just told me grandma was too damn stubborn to die today. And besides,” Megan continued before her mother could cut in, “we can go to Lunenburg then take highway 10 to Middleton. It’s not very far out of the way.”

Naomi was silent, just looking at her daughter, so Megan squeezed Alicia’s hand. “I’m good with maps.”

**A little while later**

The car climbed a steep hill and once on top, Alicia looked past Megan out the window to the left. Sunlight shone brightly off a bay dotted with several islands. Megan followed her gaze. “Peggy’s Cove is down there,” Megan said. “I don’t know who she is but everyone goes to see her lighthouse and to get washed off the rocks. That’s what my mom says. Do you want another Tim Bit?”

Alicia reached in the little cardboard box and pulled out another donut hole. Other than stopping at a drive-thru for coffee and donuts, they were making good time and Alicia was feeling hopeful.

“I don’t know who Tim was either but everyone likes his bits,” Megan stated.

Alicia suppressed a laugh as she met Naomi’s eyes in the rearview mirror. She was sitting in the backseat with Megan sipping coffee, eating Tim Bits and thinking too much. She had Google Maps open on her phone to follow their progress along the highway to Lunenburg. The application advised her they would reach the dock the Picton Castle left from with a half hour to spare before the ship was scheduled to leave.

“I can’t thank you enough, Naomi,” Alicia met the other woman’s eyes again. “If you didn’t offer me a ride…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Naomi smiled. “I’ve gotten used to Megan rescuing lost puppies and princesses.”

“She’s going to catch her princess, mom,” Megan explained patiently. “Unless you’re a princess too?”

“Maybe I am,” Alicia smiled.

Alicia’s phone chimed an incoming text.

_You did what? Carjacked a girl and her mother? That’s very LA of you!_

_No. They offered me a ride. Everyone has been really nice to me. Restores my faith in humanity._

_If you can drag Al’s sorry ass off the boat my faith in the universe will be restored yadda yadda and all that. _ 😉

Alicia held up her phone to take a picture of Megan. “Say hi to my friend Belen. She’s back in LA.”

Megan smiled tilting her head endearingly. “She’s in LA? Is she a movie star?”

Alicia texted the photo to Belen. “No, she’s a singer.” Alicia brought up Belen’s Instagram page with her photo gallery and links to her music and showed Megan a picture of the singer.

“She’s kinda pretty,” Megan looked carefully at the picture. “Not as pretty as you. You have friends with really cool names,” Megan said and Alicia watched as she tried to sound out Belen’s name. “Do you have a picture of Princess Al?”

Alicia flipped through the pictures on her phone and found one of her and Al taken by Patrick the waiter on the outside deck of the restaurant in Big Sur. They were holding hands and Alicia couldn’t mistake the look of anticipation she saw in her own face. Al, however looked almost sly in that way that Alicia had liked before, but now found almost painful. For a long time, Alicia stared at the picture until she remembered Megan sitting beside her.

Handing her phone to the girl, Alicia watched as Megan looked at the picture then, pinching the screen, zoomed in on Al. “She’s pretty,” Megan announced. “Not as pretty as you either.”

“Thank you, I think. I know she doesn’t look like a princess.”

Megan shrugged. “She could be a princess that likes to play with trucks. Doesn’t matter.”

“She has a motorcycle,” Alicia flipped through her pictures again and found the one she had taken of Al astride the Moto Guzzi, helmet in hand, outside the restaurant in San Luis Obispo.

Megan studied it. “That’s cool. I like her! She’s not very smart leaving you. I hope you catch her.”

“Me too.”

**A bit later**

Lunenburg turned out to be a small town with a surprising amount of one-way streets and way too much traffic. Naomi, guided by Megan, picked the most direct route to the waterfront and the pier where the Picton Castle was docked.

With only minutes to spare they found themselves stuck with a backlog of cars behind a tourist bus. Sensing Alicia’s urgency, Naomi steered the car to the left and squeezed past the line of cars and then the stopped bus.

Once past the bus they could see the docks ahead. There were several boats there one larger and more grand than Alicia expected. Naomi gunned the car along the now empty street and swung into a parking lot when she saw a car backing out of a space in the otherwise full lot.

Alicia was out of the car nearly before it stopped, shouting her gratitude to Naomi and Megan as she began to run toward the three-masted ship at the end of the pier. People were leaving what must have been the farewell ceremony for the ship and Alicia found herself moving against the flow.

At the end of the pier she could see sailors on the ship pulling in the huge ropes as the Picton Castle started to edge away from the wharf.

Pushing past the last few people facing the ship, Alicia dropped her backpack and, drawing in a huge breath against the pounding of her heart, cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted.

“Al! Althea!! Don’t you make me try to say your last names, damn you! Al!!!”


	8. The Goodbye Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I didn’t fly all the way here to this place to give you a peck on the cheek and to wave goodbye as you sailed off into the sunset.”

Several people on the deck of the ship looked at her curiously. Everyone else seemed to be too busy to care. The engines of the ship were making too much noise for Al to hear her, wherever she was, but Alicia couldn’t think of anything else to do short of jumping aboard the ship herself and ransacking each cabin and compartment until she found Al.

“Althea! Did you really think you were going to run away from me without saying goodbye!?”

Alicia sighed and looked around. She could see Megan and her mother walking toward her and, in front of them, a group of women with matching T-shirts who seemed to belong to a team of some sort. What their team competed in Alicia didn’t care because one of them held a bullhorn.

The woman with the bullhorn seemed to have the same idea as Alicia. As Alicia stepped toward her she held it out to Alicia.

Alicia’s first attempt to speak into the thing resulted in a lot of squawking and feedback. This, at least, drew the attention of almost everyone on the ship and on the wharf.

“Althea Szewczyk-Przygocki! There! I said it. Now get your cute ass out here and face me like a woman! Do you hear me, Al?”

Several people on the deck of the ship turned to look at a covered hatchway and Alicia saw Al, blue Dodgers hat on her head, look toward her. Alicia felt a rush of joy that turned quickly to a short-lived anger.

“That’s my hat, bitch!”

Al climbed out of the hatchway and stood looking at Alicia, hands at her sides a look of confusion and something else… a sort of happiness maybe on her face. Alicia watched as her face changed, briefly to the same sort of look she had first seen in the coffee shop: Al’s confidence and attraction for her.

Alicia glanced around. Megan and Naomi were not far, Megan standing in front of her mother hands clasped tightly as they watched and listened. And they weren’t the only ones watching. The entire team of women and every other person on the dock and those visible on the ship had their attention on Alicia.

When the deep bass note of the engines seemed to cut back to something softer and easier to speak over, and the ship stopped moving, Alicia stepped up on the edge of the wharf and let her hand holding the bullhorn drop to her side.

“Al! Where are you going? I don’t understand! You didn’t call me or text me; nothing! You were just gone.”

Al shrugged awkwardly as she seemed to shrink in on herself, her shoulders rounding and her chin drawing in as her confidence faded.

“I’m sorry, Alicia. I couldn’t face you. I can’t… I’m such a coward…”

“No, Al. That’s not what you are! I’ll tell you what you are!”

There seemed to be the sound of a collective in-drawn breath from the crowd watching and listening as if they sensed a real showdown was about to happen.

“You’re the sweetest, sexiest girl I ever met, plus the most clueless, hard-headed girl I ever met all wrapped up in one and I don’t want to lose you.”

Al’s eyes were downcast and she seemed to be studying her boots.

“I’m sorry…”

“Don’t be sorry, Al! Just be real!”

A bearded crewman wearing a golf shirt with the ship’s crest walked up to Al and they exchanged words that Alicia couldn’t hear. When the man stepped back, he raised his hand in a gesture that clearly meant _‘five minutes’_.

“Al, come over here and talk to me.”

Behind Al another crewman came out of the hatchway carrying a canvas bag that Alicia recognized as Al’s camera bag plus another larger bag. He placed them on the deck beside Al and Alicia felt a surge of hope. That hope was tempered when, ignoring the two bags, Al stepped through a gap in the side rail of the ship and jumped the slight distance to the wharf.

Alicia stepped back and handed the bullhorn back to its owner. She faced Al with about twenty feet between them. There was not a word from Al or the crowd of people so Alicia began to speak.

“You told me no one ever fought for you. No one ever told you to stop when you walked away. Well, here I am now, right here, right now, telling you I’m fighting for you! Showing you, I’m fighting for you, and I’m telling you I don’t want you to walk away. I don’t want you to walk away from me; from us.”

Al looked up. Her cheeks were red and her eyes were dull with pain and shiny at the corners with unshed tears. “Alicia, I…” Al tried but couldn’t get any further.

“You what?” Alicia shouted feeling her anger return. “Spell it out, Al! I need to understand.”

“I’m reckless and I’m stupid,” Al shouted back. “I hurt everyone I’m around. You shouldn’t…”

“I shouldn’t what? Care about you? That’s not for you to say, don’t you realize that?”

“You shouldn’t… I’ll just break your heart. Like everyone else in my life.” Al didn’t meet Alicia’s eyes she was staring at her boots again.

“No, you won’t.” The force of Alicia’s words made Al look up. “Because I won’t let you! I didn’t fly all the way here to this place to give you a peck on the cheek and to wave goodbye as you sailed off into the sunset.”

Al was watching Alicia closely now the same look of concern and hope on her face.

“I’m not a girl who gives up and walks away Al. I think you know that. Don’t you?!” Alicia nearly shouted the last part.

Out of the corner of her eye Alicia could see the attention of everyone on the dock shift from her to Al as if they were watching the back and forth of a tennis match. A few people, including Naomi held their phones in front of them recording the exchange between Alicia and Al.

“Yeah, I…” Al sighed deeply unable to go on.

Alicia stared at Al. This was getting nowhere. It was time to spell it out; time to lay it all out.

“You’re not going to run away from me,” Alicia started slowly, confidently. “After everything we felt, everything I felt for you, and I know you felt for me. I can’t let you go. I can’t bear to not see you again if it’s a year or even an hour or a day. I don’t… I don’t know how to live with that.”

Alicia closed her eyes for a moment and then opened them slowly. Al stood silently in front of her. Her jaw loose and her mouth open slightly as if in disbelief at Alicia’s words. As Alicia took in a breath to say more, Al took one step forward toward her.

‘For as long as it takes you to stand there, Althea, and decide whether to run or to stay with me, I’ll know I’ve done the one thing, the only thing, I can do when I tell you I love you and I don’t want you to go. I love you, Al! Horribly, obviously, endlessly.”

There was a murmur from the people around them and Alicia saw Megan smiling and hopping up and down on her feet.

Al was frozen in place her eyes blinking rapidly. She breathed out hard, almost gasping. She looked down only for a moment and when she looked up, looked at Alicia, her face broke into a broad smile and she laughed one hand going to her mouth as she blushed.

“You are the most amazing woman I’ve ever known, Alicia,” Al said breathlessly. “I might be reckless but you, you are absolutely fearless.” Al gestured broadly taking in all the people watching and listening around them.

“I’m not afraid, Al…”

This time Al cut off Alicia’s words with words of her own.

“I know. But I am. I’m scared, Alicia. I’m scared to death and I don’t know what to do.” Al looked away and Alicia could see tears spill from her eyes and run down her cheeks.

“Oh, Al,” Alicia said her voice filled with pain. “Don’t be scared to feel, to believe. We don’t have to know what to do. We just have to let go and let it happen.”

Al wiped her face and took another step forward.

“What do we do now?” Al asked.

Alicia felt her heart beat slow and the world shrink around her. Al stood unmoving her face full of hope even if her feet seemed unable to move.

“Nothing,” Alicia replied. “Well, not exactly nothing,” she said casually. “This…”

Alicia took two rapid steps forward, running almost, and was surprised, yet not surprised, when Al did the same thing. They picked up speed as they ran to each other meeting halfway. Yet they didn’t crash together, they just came to a stop, inches apart and slowly, achingly, met in a gentle, sweet kiss.

They heard nothing at first. Nothing until the ship’s horn tooted out a long blast and when it stopped, they could hear the people around them clapping and cheering. Alicia laughed outright. Hugging Al, she lifted her off her feet watching as Al’s face broke into the biggest grin she had ever seen.

Her hands on Alicia’s shoulders, Al looked into her eyes. “I love you, Alicia. I’m sorry I ran from you…” Burying her face in Alicia’s shoulder, Al held on tightly. The Dodgers ball cap, Alicia’s ball cap, had slipped almost off Al’s head so Alicia took it and, turning it backwards, placed it on her own head.

“I got you, Al. I’ve got you,” Alicia said softly in Al’s ear. “And this thing? This thing between you and me? We got this.”

When they finally separated, Alicia looked down as Megan hugged her around the waist. “You’re a beautiful princess, Alicia. I love you too.”

Al was turned toward the captain of the Picton Castle shaking his hand and thanking him as he placed her two bags beside her. The captain smiled and clapped Al on the back. “You’re welcome aboard anytime, Althea. Short or long cruise.” Looking at Alicia, he smiled again. “Take care of her!”

Alicia hugged Naomi as Al shook hands with, and hugged several more crew members. Naomi took a card and a pen from her purse and wrote on the back. “That’s my email address, Alicia. I know Megan is going to want to hear from you, and me too for that matter.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Alicia began looking from Naomi to Megan. “I wouldn’t be here, I wouldn’t have caught up to Al, if it wasn’t for you.”

“Yes, you would,” Megan said without a shred of doubt in her voice. “You would’ve found a way.”

“Thank you,” Alicia looked down at Megan. “Your kindness means a lot.”

Megan shrugged. “We have a good story for grandma now.”

They had started to walk away when Alicia stopped them. Taking the Dodger cap from her head she placed it on Megan’s smaller head. Pushing the brim up Megan looked up at Alicia. “Cool,” she said. With a last wave, Megan and Naomi walked away down the pier.

When all their goodbyes were said and the ship began to pull away again, the woman with the bullhorn gathered her group together and Al and Alicia watched them climb down from the wharf into small rowboats, some single and some double.

“Dories,” Al said as if reading Alicia’s thoughts. “They are training for dory races.”

“I was wondering why they all had such big arms!”

Flexing her own bicep, Al picked up one of her kit bags. Alicia took the other.

“So, what do we do now, Alicia?”

“Beats me, Al, but I’m sure we can think of something.”

**The next morning, Kingfisher Cabin, Milford House, South Milford, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia, Canada**

Alicia watched Al stack her armload of firewood beside the fireplace. She wore a plaid flannel shirt and very short shorts. For just a minute she forgot about her phone and just stared at Al. Placing a couple more logs on the fire, Al sat back and looked over her shoulder at Alicia.

“Mmmm,” Al said appreciatively taking in Alicia’s bare thighs that were exposed below her sleep shirt and shorts. “I’m liking this view. Come over here.”

“I could say the same thing.” Alicia approached Al and, taking a handful of Al’s hair, pushed Al’s face into her groin.

Face against Alicia’s body, Al mumbled something.

“What was that?” Alicia didn’t let up her pressure. “You want to take me back to bed and make love to me again? I thought you were too tired and besides, you told me you were going to make me breakfast here since we missed breakfast at the lodge dining room.”

Releasing Al, Alicia sat on the blanket laid out in front of the fireplace. Al leaned in for a kiss but Alicia blocked her with a hand on her chest.

“First I think we need to call Belen. Have you turned on your phone yet, or checked your tablet? I’ve got a zillion messages.”

Curious, Al took her phone out of her front shirt pocket and turned it on. Alicia got up to get more coffee and, when she returned, Al was looking at her tablet with obvious bewilderment. Her phone lay in front of her on the blanket booted up and connecting to the lodge wi-fi.

“What’s going on?” Al looked at Alicia and took the mug she handed her. “I have emails from two TV stations in LA.”

“We need to call Belen.”

Al took her phone and flipped to the top of her contacts list and hit the call symbol for Belen. Putting the phone on speaker, she set it between them.

“Al! What the fuck! What have… no don’t answer that, I can guess.” Belen’s voice blasted out of the phone and Al quickly turned the volume down.

“Belen, what’s going on?” Alicia asked too curious to wait for the other woman to get around to telling them.

“What’s going on is you! You’ve gone viral!!”

“Who? What?”

“Shut up, Al,” Belen ordered. “Look at your messages, Alicia. The last one I sent you. They’ve been updating it since yesterday. This is the best one.”

Alicia flipped through her phone and found the message from Belen with a You Tube link. Clicking on it, she glanced at Al apprehensively as the video began to play. Over several long shots of the Lunenburg waterfront and the three-masted barque, the Picton Castle, a love song from the late 1970’s began to play.

_…all your life you’ve waited, for love to come and stay, and now that I have found you, you must not slip away…_

An overhead shot, probably from a drone, caught a female figure, Alicia gasped when she recognized herself, running down the wharf toward the ship.

“I don’t know why they didn’t use one of my songs,” Belen was saying. “That’s a sweet tune, but really…”

“Shush, Belen!” Al and Alicia said together.

The video image changed to Alicia, standing beside the ship her chest heaving from running. She was looking at the ship, eyes moving back and forth in desperation.

“Althea! Did you really think you were going to run away from me without saying goodbye!?”

Alicia heard her voice shouting as the music faded into the background. In the next image, Al was standing on the deck of the ship eyes down and her feet shifting uneasily as Alicia’s voice said, “You’re the sweetest, sexiest girl I ever met. Al, come over here and talk to me.”

Then Al was jumping off the ship and standing on the wharf facing Alicia.

“I’m reckless and I’m stupid. I hurt everyone I’m around. I’ll just break your heart. Like everyone else in my life,” Al said and the image switched to Alicia’s face, her raw pain clearly evident.

_…I know you've been taken, afraid to hurt_ _ again, you fight the love you feel for me instead of giving in…_

The music cut out then and they heard Alicia’s words with only the background sound of the ship’s engine and a seagull or two calling. The image switched from Alicia to Al – her look a combination of pain, hope and anxiety – as Alicia spoke.

“After everything we felt, everything I felt for you, and I know you felt for me. I can’t let you go. I don’t… I don’t know how to live with that.”

“I’m scared, Alicia. I’m scared to death and I don’t know what to do.”

Al’s voice was so desperate and plaintive that Alicia’s heart broke all over again for her. When Alicia glanced up, Al was looking at her with the same expression.

Then, on the video, Alicia was saying her most heartfelt lines and the images flipped between the two of them; Alicia honest and raw and Al, her face going from pained, to hopeful to joy all in the time it took Alicia to say her words.

‘For as long as it takes you to stand there, Althea, and decide whether to run or to stay with me, I’ll know I’ve done the one thing, the only thing, I can do when I tell you I love you and I don’t want you to go. I love you, Al! Horribly, obviously, endlessly.”

The music swelled forth again and they were coming together to kiss and the angles changed as if the video came from multiple sources.

_…I was meant for you and you for me, so remember goodbye doesn't mean forever, let me tell you goodbye doesn't mean we'll never be together again… _

As the chorus of the song repeated, there were shots of the people on the wharf and on the ship smiling and cheering. Some like Naomi were wiping tears from their eyes. Then Alicia was lifting Al up and, though the music drowned out her voice, Al was clearing saying ‘I love you, Alicia.’

The video ended with a drone shot of the ship going out of the harbour edited so that it was there and then gone. The last image as the video ended was Al and Alicia walking hand in hand down the wharf.

Al and Alicia just looked at each other saying nothing until the mood was interrupted by Belen.

“I felt like I was there. Shit, you guys that was sweet.”

Alicia laughed. “I guess you can’t kiss a girl without someone recording it even up here!”

Al was busy looking through the messages on her tablet so Alicia paid attention to what Belen was saying. “I emailed the guy or girl or whoever, that made that. It won’t be up for long because of the copywrite problem with the song, so I offered them one of mine. Or maybe I’ll write a new one.”

“That’s OK, chica,” Al spoke while still working her tablet. “I’m not sure I want the whole world seeing that.”

“Too late for that, Al. That thing has gone viral, I told you!”

“I’ve got a job offer from KTLA,” Al said softly as if she didn’t believe it herself.

“What?” Alicia and Belen said together.

“Yeah,” Al looked up from the tablet meeting Alicia’s eyes. “The producer saw the video on You Tube. She said she knew who I was, but that all she ever heard about me was that I took too many risks and put myself in danger. ‘After seeing that video and how you gave up on sailing off on that ship to be with the girl you love,’” Al quoted. “’I’m willing to take a chance on you and I’d like you to come in and see me at the station. First, we need to get you on a video call to get your side of the goodbye that wasn’t.’”

**Later that afternoon**

They were getting dressed to go to dinner at the lodge when Alicia’s phone rang and Madison’s picture flashed on the screen.

Alicia looked at Al then touched the symbol for speaker phone and placed her phone on the dresser.

“Hi, mom!”

“Alicia, I just saw the story on the KTLA website. I don’t know how many people have called me today to tell me about that video…”

“I know, mom. I’m sorry. I should’ve called. We’ve just been so busy…” Al put her arms around Alicia’s waist and squeezed her and nuzzled her neck. “Al is here with me too.”

“Good,” Madison’s voice over the phone was firm. “I want to tell you how proud I am of you. You were so brave to do what you did, going all that way…” Madison seemed to run out of words at this point. “I’m just so proud of you.”

“Thanks, mom,” Alicia hesitated. “I just did what you would’ve done.”

“No, you didn’t,” Madison’s voice had regained its resolve. “I’ve never been that brave nor could I ever be that honest.”

There was a long silence as Alicia struggled to stay composed. Al was still holding her, her chin on Alicia’s shoulder.

“Thanks, mom.”

There was a pause before Madison continued, “When are you coming home?”

“Soon. Al has a job offer from KTLA.”

“That sounds good. I called your supervisor at the library. You will still have a job there but you will have to make it up to them.” Madison’s voice was gentle yet still held the tone of a reprimand.

“I forgot all about the library,” Alicia replied honestly.

“I suppose you did,” Madison laughed softly. “I’ll let you go. I love you Alicia and I’m so proud of you. Take care of Althea. I hope she understands how lucky she is to have you.”

“I do,” Al spoke up for the first time. “I’m beyond lucky. I’m blessed.”

“Don’t get carried away now, Althea. I saw the video. If you hadn’t got off that boat on your own, Alicia would have tossed you overboard.”

“I know,” Al laughed softly against Alicia’s neck.

“Good. Goodbye you two. Call me when you’re on your way home Alicia.”

**Later**

Al had finished updating her resume and emailing it to the producer at KTLA. Putting the tablet aside she put another couple of logs on the fire. Flames shot up along the side of one log as the birch log’s bark caught and flared.

She had left Alicia asleep in the bedroom while she took care of the details around the job offer. Her resume hadn’t taken much work to update; adding the end date of her employment in Phoenix and listing the free-lance projects she had completed since Phoenix, was all it took.

Like the big binder she called her scrapbook, her resume was a list of the good and the bad and she didn’t leave out any of it. Of course, it didn’t contain what the scrapbook did, the details of the night when she was seventeen that had changed her life. Many times, she had thought about throwing the scrapbook away or burning it in a symbolic flaming pyre. If she had the thing with her right here, right now, she wasn’t sure that she wouldn’t tear it apart page by page and burn it on the cheerful fire in front of her.

Looking down at the screen of her tablet, she sighed. Like her phone, the home screen was a picture of an empty lounge chair on a beautiful beach. Lonely, like her life had been before Alicia, she thought now. Lonely is what it wouldn’t be tonight. Reaching for the tablet, Al smiled as she thought about joining Alicia in bed.

The tablet vibrated in her hand and she looked at the screen. Seeing it was a video call from Belen, Al changed direction and went out to the screened porch and around the corner away from the open window to the bedroom.

It was cooler outside, maybe even chilly, to someone who had grown up in the southwest and now spent most of her time in Southern California. There was a blanket laying on a Muskoka chair so she wrapped it around herself before sitting down and accepting the video call.

“I didn’t realize Nova Scotia was above the Arctic Circle,” Belen quipped and Al stuck out her tongue.

“It’s been raining all day here…” Al started but Belen cut her off.

“Oh, poor you! What a hardship it must have been to stay indoors and have sex with your girl all day!”

Al made a face at her friend. “Just cause you’re not getting any…”

“Ha! That’s another story, chica. I’ll tell you about it later. Right now, I wanted to see if Alicia got the handcuffs and chains I Fed Exed her.”

“Funny, Izzy. I’m not going to run away again,” Al said and sighed.

“Good, cause you two are so damn good together. I just hope you get that through that thick head of yours,” Belen said this with a broad smile.

“That’s what Alicia said to me,” Al replied.

“Among other things I’m sure. Did she tell you you’re the sweetest, most generous girl any girl could hope to love?”

Al didn’t answer, just nodded at Belen’s image on the tablet screen.

“And you still don’t believe it? Do you?” Belen said and sighed.

“I’ve always been such a fuck up…”

“How many times are we going to go over this? You’ve made mistakes; had some hard times, but you’re still here, chica! You don’t lack love to give and you’ve never lacked for someone to love you. If anything, you have too many girls who would gladly love you if you so much as looked their way.”

Al looked away from Belen and out towards the lake. The sky was clearing and the moon was peeking out of the clouds. The water around the dock just below the cottage, moved slightly in the breeze. As Al was trying to think of something to say back to Belen, a loon called from out on the lake and was answered by another one and then another after that. For about a minute, Al just listened to the chorus of loon calls.

When the loons finally settled down, Al looked down at the tablet screen. Belen was looking back at her concerned.

“What in the actual fuck was that? Are you alright? I thought you were getting murdered!”

Al smiled for the first time since the call started. “It was loons, Izzy. You need to get outta LA more!”

“You got that right. Anyway, what I was going to tell you before our therapy session, is that I contacted the girl who made that video. It’s down now, if you didn’t get my message, but she’s holding on to all the cell phone video she collected and together we’re going to make another video. This time with my song.”

“Which one? Your cover of _All the Girls I’ve Loved Before_?”

There was a sound in the background that sounded like someone laughing behind Belen.

“No,” Belen said patiently. “The one I wrote for you…” There was another noise behind Belen and Al was surprised to see Sarah Yarborough appear at Belen’s shoulder. Wrapping her arms around the other woman, Sarah turned Belen’s chin toward her and they exchanged a long, rather heated kiss.

“Sorry, I think we got disconnected,” Al shook her tablet. “I seem to have got on the _girls gone wild_ porno channel.”

“Yeah, well, my day off and I want to spend it in bed with my girl and all she wants to do is write a song for some chick she used to know.” Sarah’s face filled the screen. “So, they made up one of those names for you two,” Sarah announced. “One of those couple names. _Al squared_. Pretty soon they’ll be writing fanfiction about you.”

“Who is _they_? Al asked perplexed.

“Don’t fucking ask me! Probably some nutty chicks with nothing better to do. The Internet is full of them. Just like your Stan.”

Belen pushed Sarah aside and her face filled the screen again. “I was going to play it for you and Alicia…” Belen paused as Sarah pushed a hand down her shirt. “…pero esta hermosa y loca chica necesita mi cara entre sus piernas otra vez.”

Al laughed when she translated the statement. “OK, you go take care of that. Call me later.”

**A bit later**

Al sat on the edge of the bed and watched Alicia sleeping. The handmade quilt was pulled up to just above Alicia’s breasts, and one hand was resting just below her chin her fingers curled in a loose fist. Hair was spread on the pillow around her head in a way that made Al think of an angel’s halo, and just the ghost of a smile was on her lips.

_And, like the fool you are, you almost ran away from this, _Al thought.

Al looked away feeling a tight pain in her chest that had nothing to do with heart attack yet everything to do with her heart. Pinching her nose, she tried to stop the tears that were building in her eyes.

As if sensing something amiss with her lover, Alicia sighed and opened her eyes. Al was beside her on the bed holding her tablet and looking away. Alicia reached out a hand and rested it on Al’s bare thigh.

“What’s the matter?” Alicia asked softly seeing Al’s tears.

“Nothing,” Al wiped quickly at her cheeks and sniffed. “I’m just thinking about how stupid I almost was.”

“You’re not stupid,” Alicia said sincerely. “Hard headed and a little slow sometimes, but not stupid.” She smiled at Al to temper her words.

Al flopped backwards and lay her head on Alicia’s bare belly. “I think I’ve always been this way.”

“Do you think you might settle down, Reckless?” Alicia kept her voice soft. Combing her fingers through Al’s hair she waited while several thoughts seemed to come and go for Al as her face changed from considering to wistful to contented.

“I think it might be nice to have someone to come home to…” Al said gazing at the ceiling her eyes distant.

“Maybe I’ll come home to you?” Alicia reached a hand inside Al’s flannel shirt and across her breast.

Al sucked in a breath as Alicia tweaked her nipple. “That might be nice too. Last one home brings the take-out.” Al closed her eyes enjoying Alicia’s soft touch.

“Tacos?”

“Mmm hmmm…”

Turning her body toward Alicia, Al placed a hand on either side of Alicia’s hips and slowly moved in for a kiss. The kiss was very long and very intense and left both of them breathless. Al leaned back her eyes closed as Alicia ran her fingertip along her jaw.

“What I said to you I’ve never said to any other girl,” Al whispered, eyes still closed.

Alicia waited, one hand on Al’s cheek the other flat on her chest.

“I never said it because I never meant it before,” Al continued. Finally opening her eyes, she looked at Alicia her expression full of longing. “Until you, _‘I love you’_ was just words.”

“You loved Belen, didn’t you?”

Al blinked and her eyes shifted upward. “Yeah, I suppose I did,” she answered. “Just not in the way I should have, or the way she needed me to.” Al paused. “I was young and I was…”

“If you say you’re stupid one more time,” Alicia said her tone mock severe, “there will be no more sex for you!”

“Oooo, that’s harsh!” Al grinned. She was leaning in for another kiss when her tablet, lying beside them on the bed, warbled a notification. Al tapped accept on the video call and propped the tablet on her hip as she lay back on Alicia.

“Mmmm, titties!” Sarah’s face filled the screen and Al laughed as Alicia began frantically pulling at the quilt until she had covered herself up to her chin. “You need some help there, Alicia?”

“No, thank you, Sergeant,” Alicia replied primly. “I’m quite fine.”

“I bet you are…”

“Sarah!” Belen shouted from the background. “Get your sweet ass back here.”

“She’s quite the taskmaster, Al. I’m loving every minute of it!” Sarah winked broadly and walked away from the camera. Picking up an acoustic guitar she sat next to Belen.

When Alicia looked at Al and raised her eyebrows in question, Al smiled and nodded.

Belen strummed a chord on her acoustic and looked directly into the video camera.

“This is called _Reckless_ and it’s for both of you.”

“Gonna be number one…” Sarah started to say before Belen knocked her knee into Sarah’s knee.

Belen smiled at Sarah then softly counted, “One and two and three…” and they began to play and Belen to sing.

You’re reckless and your crazy and I did it all for you  
You’re reckless and you’re wild and we could never be  
There’s nothing you wouldn’t do  
Nowhere you wouldn’t go  
With love it was like you just couldn’t see  
You were reckless with your heart until true love found you

End *******

A/N: Writing this has been fun. I hope you enjoyed reading it and if so, feel free to let me know 😊 As much as I love what I do, throwing it out into the void can be tough because the void has a way of sucking up all the good I get out of writing and giving next to nothing back. I'm here behind these words; don't be afraid to reach out. I don't bite.Well, only in certain, private, circumstances 😊 My email is in my profile if that's easier than saying something in the comments. BTW, the Picton Castle and Milford House are real. You can Goggle them for more info.

Alice ................


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